The Process Safety Professional. Education and Skills. Chapter 5/1

There’s no substitute for knowing what you’re doing.

We are releasing sections of the book The Process Safety Professional to our subscribers. In this post we release the first part of Chapter 5 ― Education and Skills.

The chapter starts as follows.

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In this chapter we take a look at some of the education and skills that a process safety professional should possess. We reiterate the statement made at that start of this book that the material here is not meant to be introductory. It is assumed that anyone reading this chapter already has the basic skills, such as being able to read a P&ID, lead a hazards analysis, or manage a small project.

The material in this chapter is divided into the following sections:

• Hard and soft skills,

• Formal education,

• Constant learning,

• Knowledge of past events,

• Professional involvement,

• Networking,

• Communication,

• Story-telling,

• Team management,

• Litigation support,

• Project management, and

• The Resumé /CV.

The over-riding theme is that an effective process safety professional has to think holistically. His or her knowledge is not limited to a single, narrow detailed specialized sphere; instead, he or she has a broad grasp of management, technical and human systems, and how they interact with one another. This does not mean that the professional has to be an expert in everything — such a goal is obviously unrealistic, but it does mean that he or she needs to have a working knowledge of multifarious topics, and to have a comprehension as to how they fit together. The phrase ‘jack of all trades, but master of none’ is usually considered pejorative. However, with regard to the process safety professional, it is a sensible job description.

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The current Table of Contents for the book is here.