TEMper tantrums
This bit is all about how to brief in the TEM way. First up a little history lesson about how this came to be.
How to brief the TEM way
A proper decent threat based briefing should achieve four things. It should be:
- Threat Forward
- Interactive
- Scalable
- Cognitive
What do those all mean? Let me tell you…
Did you get them all wrong? Mwa ha ha! Sorry about that, I set them up as flashcards and there is no way you could guess my answer word for word.
Let me explain them a bit more:
THREAT FORWARD means briefing should include relevant threats but also (and as importantly) what your mitigation plans for those threats are. No point pointing something out if you don’t say what you’ll do about it!
INTERACTIVE is exactly what it sounds like. Don’t speak AT the other pilot. Ask for their input. What do they see? How would they deal with it? What have you missed? It is about sharing the mental model so you are both working from the same page, and so you capture more things.
SCALABLE is where you really focus on what is specific for that flight, but also for you! Don’t talk about things for the sake of it, but talk about things that are unfamiliar, that your proficiency or competencies might need you to cover more that flight. Talk about the things that are threats for you, which are challenging or complex for you, on that day.
COGNITIVE can be a slightly harder one to understand. Basically, you want to make sure the threats are understood and the plans to deal with them are properly understood too. This means covering the PRACTICAL side of HOW you will do things. Recap on the specific actions required, what duties you both have etc so its more than just theory.
Got it?
OK, fine, I’ll demonstrate it a bit more cognitively for you…
I made you do the work there, but hopefully it made sense?
We saw examples of
- Asking the other pilot to point out threats or to suggest strategies. This is interactive.
- Identifying threats and discussing the way to manage them. This is threat forward.
- Discussing ones specific for the flight like the traffic levels, the speed restrictions which might cause an error etc. This is scalable.
- They ran through the way they would fly a wind shear so both reviewed it practically. This is cognitive.