Facilitating Adequate Prioritization of Safety Goals in Distributed Teams at the Norwegian Continental Shelf

Petroleum installation employees have to balance safety goals versus other types of goals as a part of their daily work activities. To reduce the risk for incidents and accidents, it is critical to obtain a better understanding of how to facilitate adequate prioritization of safety goals, i.e., prioritizations in accordance with the standards set by the company in charge. The first part of the paper provides a theoretical fundament for developing techniques and tools to support adequate prioritization of safety goals in a work context. It reviews theories on goal conflicts, and suggests a revised definition of the concept, which also includes the goal of the organizational level. The second part introduces a technology for risk visualization, called the IO-MAP, which is currently being designed. The purpose of the IO-MAP is to facilitate adequate prioritization of safety goals in maintenance planning processes performed by distributed teams.