2026 Community of Human and Organizational Learning 32nd Annual Conference

Operational waste, such as rework, friction, workarounds, delays, duplicated steps, and overcomplicated controls, is often your earliest signal of system stress. These are not just productivity problems. They are indicators that Work-as-Imagined (WAI) and Work-as-Done (WAD) are drifting apart.


Most organizations manage to the Black Line, the procedures, rules, and documented controls that describe how work should happen. But performance actually lives in the Blue Line, how work really gets done under real-world pressure, variability, and constraint.


The gap between Black Line and Blue Line is where learning lives. And it’s also where waste, friction, control erosion, and weak signals begin to accumulate. Most safety systems focus on closing compliance gaps. High-performing systems focus on understanding alignment gaps.


This session explores how HOP and operational learning tools, like the 4Ds, and AI can help you systematically learn from everyday operations at scale, not just from incidents. Instead of waiting for failure, you’ll discover how to surface early indicators of system strain by examining where WAI and WAD diverge across sites, teams, and environments.


You’ll learn how operational waste reveals:

1. Where work is “Difficult” and creating cognitive overload
2. Where processes are “Different” and introducing instability
3. Where exposure is becoming “Dangerous” beneath normal production
4. Where systems are “Dumb” adding steps that no longer make sense

These signals show up long before injury or loss. They show up in everyday work.


To scale this learning, organizations must move beyond isolated conversations and static reports. This scaling will be constrained without using AI as a Learning Amplifier, Not a Control Mechanism. An ethical and human-centered approach to AI is vital. AI should be:

1. A pattern amplifier, not a people predictor
2. A sensemaking assistant, not a decision-maker
3. A weak signal detector, not a surveillance tool
4. A conversation catalyst, not a compliance enforcer

AI helps connect Blue Line realities across operations. Humans interpret the meaning.

Part 1 of 2
Significant risks hide in our daily successes, but we don't have to wait for incidents to occur to learn -- we can learn every day through good habits, routines, and structured daily debriefs. Drawing on concepts from his 2026 book, Safety Science for Outdoor & Experiential Education, Steve Smith will provide an overview of HOP Principles and invite participants to practice debriefing through two different lenses - a traditional approach, and a HOP-informed approach. What are effective ways to use daily debriefs and guiding questions to understand the difference between work-as-imagined and work-as-done? This session will be 50% presentation, 50% hands-on-practice and applying the concepts from the presentation to actual, recent events and participant experiences, in the spirit of learning, not blaming.

Part 2

Significant risks hide in our daily successes, but we don't have to wait for incidents to occur to learn -- we can learn every day through good habits, routines, and structured daily debriefs. Drawing on concepts from his 2026 book, Safety Science for Outdoor & Experiential Education, Steve Smith will provide an overview of HOP Principles and invite participants to practice debriefing through two different lenses - a traditional approach, and a HOP-informed approach. What are effective ways to use daily debriefs and guiding questions to understand the difference between work-as-imagined and work-as-done? This session will be 50% presentation, 50% hands-on-practice and applying the concepts from the presentation to actual, recent events and participant experiences, in the spirt of learning, not blaming.