Leadership and Management – from standards to practices

DECEMBER 12-15, 2016, VIENNA

TOPICS

The workshop programme follows its title: Leadership and Management: From Standards to Practices. Consequently, the first topic to be discussed will be status of, and topics related to, various standards dealing with management systems.
Two important topics have been selected as deserving special focus during the workshop. The selection is based on the feedback received from IAEA Member States and from the participants of the 13th IAEA–FORATOM Management System Workshop. These two special topics are leadership/organizational culture and the implementation of risk based/informed approaches in management systems, also including a graded approach. Following this, experiences related to the application of management systems, practical examples and case studies dealing with practices in various countries will be the main topics to be discussed.
See the Appendix for a more detailed description of the workshop topics.

Appendix: Further Details about the Workshop Topics

The IAEA and FORATOM invite you to submit an abstract for a presentation on a topic addressing one or several of the workshop’s topic areas. Due to the practical programme arrangements, we reserve the right to consider the most relevant session for accepted abstracts. Typically, one day will be devoted to one topic area.

Standards

The Management System for Facilities and Activities (IAEA Safety Standards Series No. GS-R-3, Vienna, 2006) defines the requirements for establishing, implementing, assessing and continually improving a management system. The new version of these IAEA requirements, currently being prepared as draft safety standard DS456, is expected to be issued soon as Leadership and Management for Safety (IAEA Safety Standards Series No. GSR Part 2).

A number of national and international quality assurance/management standards are being used in the nuclear industry to complement the IAEA requirements, such as:

ISO 9001:2015: Quality management systems — Requirements for the establishment and implementation of a quality management system for the manufacturing and service industries. Apart from this, Working Group 4 of International Organization for Standardization (ISO) Technical Committee 85 is working on a draft standard related to supply chain and conformity assessment (ISO 19443).

ISO/DIS 45001: Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems — Requirements to enable an organization to manage its safety risks and improve its safety performance.

ASME NQA-1-2015 (with related addenda) defines the quality assurance requirements for nuclear facility applications, and was developed by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).

IEC Standards — International Standards for all electrical, electronic and related technologies issued by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). IEC standards cover a vast range of technologies. The IEC also manages three global conformity assessment systems that certify whether equipment, system or components conform to its International Standards.
IEEE standards issued by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) affecting a wide range of industries, including: power and energy, biomedical and healthcare, information technology, telecommunications, transportation, nanotechnology, information assurance, etc.

National rules, regulations and industry requirements such as:

French RCC series (“Règles de Conception et de Construction des matériels”)

Requirements for a Quality Assurance Programme at a Nuclear Plant (NP-011-99) and other key regulatory documents in force in the Russian Federation, such as the Nuclear Power Plant Quality Assurance Programme.

Requirements in China conform to the national legislation “HAF-003 Regulation on NPP Quality and Safety Assurance”.

NSQ-100 (Nuclear Quality Standard Association) dedicated to the quality of the nuclear supply chain in terms of quality and safety. This standard is based upon ISO 9001:2008 and two other major nuclear quality standards: IAEA Safety Standards Series No. GS-R-3 and ASME NQA-1-2008 (and addenda from 2009).

Other national standards.

Topic area 1 is planned to be mainly covered by invited contributions.

Leadership, Management and Culture for Safety

Leadership for safety

Is leadership a senior management responsibility or is it inherent in everyone’s behaviour?
How can leadership be demonstrated practically by an organization?
What are the characteristics/principles of good leadership?
Is the concept of leadership sufficiently defined in the IAEA standards (in particular within the draft safety standard DS456) — if not, what would be a good definition?
Are there examples from the nuclear or other industries to be reported?

Leadership and the management system

How do you lead and manage organizational change?
How can a management system support leadership and decision-making?
Is the management system a mirror of your senior management or a reflection of your requirements/needs?
What is the role of the leadership in defining the management system?
What best practices exist to engage leaders in the development and continuous improvement of the management system?
What are the biggest challenges for leadership?
What practices support the senior management’s understanding of human, technological and organizational interactions?
Are there examples from nuclear or other industries to be reported?

Leadership applications

How do the requirements differ for leadership in normal operation and in emergency situations?
What are the attributes of good leadership and how can one be a good leader on a daily basis?
What are the challenges for leadership over the life cycle of a nuclear facility (e.g. new build, operation, decommissioning) and are different leadership styles more effective than others depending on the stage in the life cycle?
Are there elements of leadership and management in high reliability organizations that are unique?
What are the challenges of transitioning from a technical role to a leadership role and how are these addressed?
Are there examples from nuclear or other industries to be reported?

Leadership and culture

How can an organization identify its culture and whether or not it needs to change?
What examples are there of leadership tools and techniques to influence culture?
What are the cultural aspects of leadership — how are good leaders perceived in different cultures?
What are the challenges in helping leaders to understand the organizational culture?
Can organizational culture be measured? What indicators, if any, may indicate a decline or improvement in culture — and how does this relate to leadership?
How does the culture of an organization influence nuclear, industrial and environmental safety, performance of the facility, and security and safeguards?
What best practices are there in current approaches to organizational culture?
Are there examples from nuclear or other industries to be reported?

Managing Risks, Project Risks, Risk Based/Informed Auditing and Grading Activities

Evaluating the effectiveness of a management system from a risk management perspective

A management system has to support the realization of an organization’s objectives and has to manage the risks within the scope of the organization’s ‘risk appetite’ (risk-taking behaviour).

Organizations have to evaluate the effectiveness of their management system, but how to evaluate the effectiveness of a management system regarding the risks of the organization?
What best practices/practical examples are there in the area of risk based/informed auditing?

Risk management in practice

Risk management is an integral part of the management system. Risk management is applied in various processes, such as maintenance, purchasing and outsourcing, waste treatment, configuration changes, organizational changes, policy deployment, etc.

What best practices/practical examples are there in the application of risk management in different types of processes?

How to implement a balanced oversight and standards in a management system

Managing risk as a whole in an organization means managing different risk types, e.g. project, operational, strategic and financial risks.

How can risk management be integrated into a management system?
How to manage risks and arrive at reasonably balanced decisions concerning these without gaps and overlaps?
What works and what does not?
How to apply GSR Part 2 (soon to be issued), ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 31000:2012 (or any other standards) in practice?
Is there a risk that compliance could become an objective of its own and that organizations forget the reasons for its rules?

Implementing a graded approach in an integrated management system

Are organizations using a graded approach in their management systems (why or why not)?
How can risk analysis be used effectively as a basis for grading business processes within a management system?
How important are the gross risk (identified risk before management actions) and the net risk (residual risk after the risk management actions) as indicators for grading?

Emerging risks

Safe and profitable nuclear operation is a cornerstone of successful nuclear energy production. Global risks materialize in new and unexpected manners and become more tangible as their consequences begin to affect people, institutions and economies directly. Examples of emerging risks are climate change, floods and severe storms, cybercrime, unstable societies, the complexity of the global supply chain and the inter-competitiveness of worldwide systems.

What are relevant emerging risks for the nuclear industry and how to manage them?

Practices, Applications and Case Studies

Presentations are being sought on a wide variety of topics with an emphasis on practical examples of good practices in the area of management system development, implementation and continuous improvement. The topics below represent some examples of possible topics.

Process management

What best practices/practical examples are there related to organizational structure?
What best practices/practical examples are there related to process integration, process diagrams, the administration of processes, responsibilities of the personnel involved in processes, the relationship between process owners and managers, etc.?
How are the support processes such as knowledge management, security management, change management, etc. included in the management system?
What are the challenges of transitioning from a quality assurance or safety management system to an integrated process based management system?

Organizational performance management

How does a process based management system contribute to organizational performance?
What are the best practices of the industry related to improving human resource and competence management?
What is the experience of using performance indicators and their monitoring?
How is continuous improvement of performance achieved?

Evaluation the effectiveness of a management system: audits, self-assessment, peer review, external auditing

A management system is a framework for achieving the organizational objectives. Leaders and organizational culture play an important role in how well this succeeds. The system has to be repeatedly evaluated in order to identify weaknesses and opportunities for improvement.

How effective is the management system in contributing to achieving the desired results?
What are the best practices of the industry related to self-assessment, independent audit, and use of peers in the review processes?

Management system challenges in a diverse corporate structure

Organizations with subsidiaries depend on the individual success of each subsidiary. In these conditions, the information flow between the corporate management and the subsidiaries is crucial. What are the challenges in implementing effective management systems under such a structure?
What is the role of governance policy and communication models in achieving the objectives?
How can the corporate leadership support local management in achieving the objectives that are important for the whole company, and what degree of independence is good for subsidiaries?
How should one conduct periodic oversight activities in order to be assured about the fulfilment of the objectives?
How could information and documentation management support Member States?

Role of regulatory oversight in achieving a sustainable management system

Regulatory organizations play a very important role in the life of organizations involved in the nuclear field, e.g. the operators of nuclear facilities.

How do regulators ensure that the licensee develops and implements a management system in accordance with the regulatory requirements?
What best practices/practical examples are there of regulatory tools to ensure leadership for safety?
What are the challenges of implementing an integrated management system which includes commercially sensitive information and processes to which a safety regulator has access?
Any practical examples and case studies dealing with the application of management systems are welcomed.