Application of Boyd’s OODA loop to emergency response

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (5) ◽  
pp. 461-468
Author(s):  
David J. Tanui, DSc, MSc, BEd (Hons)
Keyword(s):  
Emergency Management ◽  
Emergency Response ◽  
Command And Control ◽  
The United States ◽  
Management Policy ◽  
Federal State ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Dynamic Task ◽  
Response Phase ◽  
And Control

Emergency management is a dynamic task that requires constant evaluation and research so as to improve processes and systems. Most importantly, the rise in emergencies has led to increased costs of managing them. These cost increases are happening at a time when US government agencies are experiencing budget-cuts. Therefore, a search for solutions to improve emergency management is critical, especially in the emergency response phase. The emergency response phase is particularly important because studies show that due to the confusion and panic caused when a disaster strikes, failures in command and control often lead to delays in action and increased operation costs.This article argues that Boyd’s OODA loop, a command and control concept used by the US military for several years, presents opportunities as an off-the-shelf resource that can be adapted by nonmilitary response organizations at federal, state, local, and agency level. The study is an important contribution to the ongoing discourse on emergency management policy and practice in the United States.

Are we better off? Emergency management policy implementation since September 11

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (6) ◽  
pp. 439-453
Author(s):  
Sean Hildebrand, PhD
Keyword(s):  
Policy Implementation ◽  
Emergency Management ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Federal Policy ◽  
Local Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
September 11 ◽  
Management Policy ◽  
Federal State ◽  
Incident Management

As public policy continues its evolution, so do theories about policy implementation. One policy field that changed during the twenty-first century is emergency management and homeland security in the United States. Since the September 11 attacks, the federal government attempted to centralize the way government agencies at the federal, state, and local level prepare for and respond to natural, accidental, and terror-related disasters. However, research in the field is split about the effectiveness of this effort during the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations. While some feel federal actions taken to prepare for and respond to incidents of natural, accidental, or purposeful intent have been fruitful in preparing the nation for catastrophic events, others say it detracts from the core mission of emergency management. This study considers if the policy changes that occurred during those administrations created a disparity between the policy expectations of the federal government and the actions of local officials in emergency management. The findings show that local emergency management professionals generally reported the implementation of federal policy expectations, and that the odds of doing so increase where respondents report greater “clarity” in the federal policy language. However, differences exist in terms of how local managers view the requirements of the National Incident Management System (NIMS) versus other federal policy demands. This signals that experienced actors may nominally comply with federal policy demands by downplaying those requirements seen as useless in favor of functions that meet jurisdictional needs.

Data Fusion Aiding Tool (DAFAT) Design for Emergency Command and Control Using Lean Principles

2015 ◽  
pp. 202-230
Author(s):  
Obafemi Balogun ◽  
Edem G. Tetteh
Keyword(s):  
Emergency Management ◽  
Hurricane Katrina ◽  
Emergency Response ◽  
Command And Control ◽  
Lean Principles ◽  
Response Planning ◽  
Emergency Response Planning ◽  
The World ◽  
And Control ◽  
Insight Into

Disaster events, such as September 11, 2001, Hurricane Katrina, and the Southeast Asian Tsunami, have taught America and the world the importance of preparing for emergency response to a disaster that may arise from natural disasters or man-made disasters. Decisions regarding emergency response often rely on incomplete information and imprecise data, whereas responsive measures to disasters must be efficient in time and effective in accuracy to minimize possible loss of lives and properties. The domain of emergency response requires the interaction and collaboration of multiple stakeholders with different standard operating procedures. Excluding lean principles in the design of the emergency management information system can be as devastating as the disaster itself. This chapter analyzes the impacts of lean principles in the understanding of command and control, its nature, and the characteristics of an emergency domain, providing better insight into the problems associated with information processing during emergency response planning.

Perceiving the effects of scale on command and control: A conceptual metaphor approach

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 91-104
Author(s):  
Tony McAleavy, BA (Hons), MSc, PhD
Keyword(s):  
Command And Control ◽  
Resource Depletion ◽  
The United States ◽  
Incident Command ◽  
Emergency Managers ◽  
Golden Thread ◽  
Gold Silver ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Uk ◽  
And Control

Objective: This study investigates emergency manager’s perceptions of Command and Control to answer the question “how do emergency managers metaphorically interpret Command and Control?”Design: An interpretivist paradigm, verbatim transcription, and content and linguistic metaphor analysis were used within this study.Setting: Fifteen interviews per country, three per selected organization were conducted in the United Kingdom and the United States of America.Subjects: Purposive sampling identified suitable participants from key organizations engaged in emergency management at local, subnational, and national levels.Interventions: The study consisted of 30 semi-structured face-to-face interviews conducted within the work-place.Main Outcome Measure(s): The inductive and qualitative nature of the study resulted in a 300,000-word corpus of data from which the two posited theories emerged.Results: The UK Gold, Silver, Bronze model and the USA Incident Command System were considered tried and tested although they are conceptually misunderstood. Moreover, they are believed to be essential, scalable, and flexible. Able to manage the perceived chaos of increasing scales of disaster which contradicts the existing literature.Conclusions: Two conceptual metaphors are theorized to create flexible learning tools that challenge the entrenched nature of these findings. Command and Control as a Candle demonstrates the effects of increasing disaster scale on systemic efficacy. Command and Control as a Golden Thread illustrates problems caused by time, distance, resource depletion, and infrastructure degradation. These tools engender deeper more critical perspectives by linking theory to practice through metaphor to engender perceptual change.

Emergency management and homeland security: Exploring the relationship

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 483
Author(s):  
Jerome H. Kahan, BA, BS, MSEE
Keyword(s):  
Emergency Management ◽  
Homeland Security ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
The United States ◽  
Federal State ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Preparedness Planning ◽  
Efficiency And Effectiveness ◽  
State And Local ◽  
Public And Private Stakeholders

In the years after the 9/11 tragedy, the United States continues to face risks from all forms of major disasters, from potentially dangerous terrorist attacks to catastrophic acts of nature. Professionals in the fields of emergency management and homeland security have responsibilities for ensuring that all levels of government, urban areas and communities, nongovernmental organizations, businesses, and individual citizens are prepared to deal with such hazards though actions that reduce risks to lives and property. Regrettably, the overall efficiency and effectiveness of the nation's ability to deal with disasters is unnecessarily challenged by the absence of a common understanding on how these fields are related in the workforce and educational arenas. Complicating matters further is the fact that neither of these fields has developed agreed definitions. In many ways, homeland security and emergency management have come to represent two different worlds and cultures. These conditions can have a deleterious effect on preparedness planning for public and private stakeholders across the nation when coordinated responses among federal, state, and local activities are essential for dealing with consequential hazards. This article demonstrates that the fields of emergency management and homeland security share many responsibilities but are not identical in scope or skills. It argues that emergency management should be considered a critical subset of the far broader and more strategic field of homeland security. From analytically based conclusions, it recommends five steps that be taken to bring these fields closer together to benefit more from their synergist relationship as well as from their individual contributions.

scholarly journals Team Leader Structuring for Team Effectiveness and Team Learning in Command-and-Control Teams

2017 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Selma van der Haar ◽  
Mieke Koeslag-Kreunen ◽  
Eline Euwe ◽  
Mien Segers
Keyword(s):  
Emergency Management ◽  
Team Effectiveness ◽  
Team Learning ◽  
Command And Control ◽  
Team Leader ◽  
Effective Teams ◽  
Team Meetings ◽  
Constructive Conflict ◽  
And Control ◽  
Over Time

Due to their crucial and highly consequential task, it is of utmost importance to understand the levers leading to effectiveness of multidisciplinary emergency management command-and-control (EMCC) teams. We argue that the formal EMCC team leader needs to initiate structure in the team meetings to support organizing the work as well as facilitate team learning, especially the team learning process of constructive conflict. In a sample of 17 EMCC teams performing a realistic EMCC exercise, including one or two team meetings (28 in sum), we coded the team leader’s verbal structuring behaviors (1,704 events), rated constructive conflict by external experts, and rated team effectiveness by field experts. Results show that leaders of effective teams use structuring behaviors more often (except asking procedural questions) but decreasingly over time. They support constructive conflict by clarifying and by making summaries that conclude in a command or decision in a decreasing frequency over time.

scholarly journals Command and control of Sierra Leone's Ebola outbreak response: evolution of the response architecture

2017 ◽  
Vol 372 (1721) ◽  
pp. 20160306 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma Ross
Keyword(s):  
Emergency Response ◽  
National Level ◽  
Command And Control ◽  
West African ◽  
Outbreak Response ◽  
Working Practices ◽  
And Control ◽  
Different Cultures ◽  
Rare Opportunity

Management, coordination and logistics were critical for responding effectively to the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone, and the duration of the epidemic provided a rare opportunity to study the management of an outbreak that endured long enough for the response to mature. This qualitative study examines the structures and systems used to manage the response, and how and why they changed and evolved. It also discusses the quality of relationships between key responders and their impact. Early coordination mechanisms failed and the President took operational control away from the Ministry of Health and Sanitation and established a National Ebola Response Centre, headed by the Minister of Defence, and District Ebola Response Centres. British civilian and military personnel were deeply embedded in this command and control architecture and, together with the United Nations Mission for Ebola Emergency Response lead, were the dominant coordination partners at the national level. Coordination, politics and tensions in relationships hampered the response, but as the response mechanisms matured, coordination improved and rifts healed. Simultaneously setting up new organizations, processes and plans as well as attempting to reconcile different cultures, working practices and personalities in such an emergency was bound to be challenging. This article is part of the themed issue ‘The 2013–2016 West African Ebola epidemic: data, decision-making and disease control’.

Shipboard Communications: Quantifying Operator Capabilities and Limitations

2002 ◽  
Vol 46 (23) ◽  
pp. 1900-1904
Author(s):  
E. Bardine Debra ◽  
F. Wallace Daniel ◽  
Udo Goff ◽  
Christine Schlichting
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United States Navy ◽  
Human Performance ◽  
Command And Control ◽  
The United States ◽  
Breaking Point ◽  
Voice Communications ◽  
Audio Channel ◽  
Subject Experiment ◽  
And Control

As the United States Navy moves towards a reduction in manning aboard future ships, the number and complexity of tasks the warfighter must perform remains high. One responsibility of the warfighter that is very taxing on his/her audio channel is the handling of voice communications. To determine the “breaking point” in handling these voice communications, researchers used a fully developed scenario to test the capabilities and limitations of typical Navy watchstanders when subjected to a varying number of active communications circuits. Metrics such as accuracy and latency of response were used to measure human performance. In addition, a between-subject experiment was used to determine whether or not a simulated speech-to-text tool would help to improve warfighter performance on a communications task, while not degrading performance on a primary, tactical task. The experiment was performed in the Integrated Command Environment (ICE) lab at NAVSEA Dahlgren, a testbed for future command and control concepts and a vehicle to solicit valuable feedback from members of the fleet.

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