Normalisation of data deviance

The term ‘normalisation of deviance’ refers to situations where employees become accustomed to deviation from standards/designs in engineering and industrial situations without recognising that these can be precursor events to major incidents.

This was a contributory factor in the loss of the Challenger and Columbia space shuttles, the Buncefield explosion, the loss of an RAF Nimrod MR2 and many other major incidents.

Can normalisation of deviance occur with data?

The Data Accident Investigation Board

At a recent talk by Professor Graham Braithwaite of Cranfield University on the role and work of the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) and the approaches taken to investigating an accident, it made me think about whether similar approaches may work for data.

This did not immediately become a blog post, but having read Jim Harris’s blog post on the “The Poor Data Quality Jar” and the subsequent discussion of this post, I resurrected this idea.

Do you think there is a place for the Data Accident Investigation Board?