@article {bnh-3595, title = {Identifying and resolving coordinated decision making breakdowns in emergency management}, journal = {International Journal of Emergency Management}, volume = {13}, year = {2017}, month = {2017}, abstract = {

Effective coordination is an essential part of managing large-scale emergencies. It is important for key personnel in emergency management agencies to be able to identify and resolve breakdowns in coordination quickly and effectively. This paper focuses on how this is done by Australian regional coordinators. Eleven regional coordinators from three emergency management agencies in Australia participated in individual simulated table-top emergency management exercises involving a concurrent semi-structured interview. Results indicated that two breakdown identification strategies were used: internal (information and intuition-based) and external (network). Two breakdown resolution strategies were identified: response and preparedness. Five {\textquoteright}response{\textquoteright} resolution strategies were employed: delegating representatives, providing additional resources, asserting authority, mentoring staff and replacing disruptive staff. Two {\textquoteright}preparedness{\textquoteright} breakdown resolution strategies were employed: preplanning and building a cooperative culture. These results contribute to our understanding of how people identify and resolve breakdowns in coordination from the position of operational oversight.

}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1504/IJEM.2017.081198}, url = {http://www.inderscienceonline.com/doi/abs/10.1504/IJEM.2017.081198}, author = {Grunwald, J and Christopher Bearman} } @article {bnh-3593, title = {Tools for monitoring teams in emergency management: EMBAM and TBM}, journal = {Australian Journal of Emergency Management}, volume = {32}, year = {2017}, month = {2017}, abstract = {

Effective teamwork is an important component of emergency management. However, from time-to-time teamwork may break down, particularly in a complex system like emergency management. It is important that people who have operational oversight of teams are able to detect if a team has a problem and can help the team modify its functioning. A literature review identified methods of monitoring teams from the position of operational oversight. Based on this review two methods of team monitoring were chosen for further evaluation. A preliminary evaluation study of each tool during a simulated emergency exercise suggests they both have potential. This is the first stage of an ongoing research program where team monitoring tools will be further developed using iterative design cycles of development and evaluation. In this way methods of monitoring teams from the position of operational oversight that are effective in an emergency management context can be developed. - See more at: https://ajem.infoservices.com.au/items/AJEM-32-01-10$\#$sthash.IHFPYwWm.dpuf

}, url = {https://ajem.infoservices.com.au/items/AJEM-32-01-10}, author = {Christopher Bearman and Grunwald, J and Brooks, B and Owen, Christine} } @article {bnh-3594, title = {Breakdowns in coordinated decision making at and above the incident management team level: An analysis of three large scale Australian wildfires}, journal = {Applied Ergonomics}, volume = {47}, year = {2015}, month = {03/2015}, pages = {16-25}, chapter = {16}, abstract = {

Emergency situations are by their nature difficult to manage and success in such situations is often highly dependent on effective team coordination. Breakdowns in team coordination can lead to significant disruption to an operational response. Breakdowns in coordination were explored in three large-scale bushfires in Australia: the Kilmore East fire, the Wangary fire, and the Canberra Firestorm. Data from these fires were analysed using a top-down and bottom-up qualitative analysis technique. Forty-four breakdowns in coordinated decision making were identified, which yielded 83 disconnects grouped into three main categories: operational, informational and evaluative. Disconnects were specific instances where differences in understanding existed between team members. The reasons why disconnects occurred were largely consistent across the three sets of data. In some cases multiple disconnects occurred in a temporal manner, which suggested some evidence of disconnects creating states that were conducive to the occurrence of further disconnects. In terms of resolution, evaluative disconnects were nearly always resolved however operational and informational disconnects were rarely resolved effectively. The exploratory data analysis and discussion presented here represents the first systematic research to provide information about the reasons why breakdowns occur in emergency management and presents an account of how team processes can act to disrupt coordination and the operational response.

}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apergo.2014.08.009}, url = {http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003687014001483}, author = {Christopher Bearman and Grunwald, J and Brooks, B and Owen, Christine} } @article {bnh-2594, title = {Decision making, team monitoring and organisational performance: Part One Executive Summary}, number = {69}, year = {2015}, month = {08/2015}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

This research report is an interim report for the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC project Practical Decision Tools for Improved Decision-Making in Complex Situations. The project plan for this research includes three main research streams: Decision making, team monitoring and organisational performance. The initial work in the project has identified that the three research streams in the project are best treated as interrelated but distinct bodies of work.

For ease, these have been published as separate documents.

All parts can be located at www.bnhcrc.com.au, under the Practical decision tools for improved decision-making in complex, time constrained and multi-team environments project page.

Each of the research streams has been coordinated by one of the principal researchers in the project and each research stream is thus considered discretely in this report.\  While we have chosen to present the research streams individually here there is a large degree of interrelation between the streams, particularly between the team monitoring and organisational performance streams; and both are informed by the decision-making tranche of work. The interdependence of these streams will be emphasized in later phases of the research project.\ \ 

}, issn = {69}, author = {Christopher Bearman and Brooks, B and Owen, Christine and Steve Curnin and Keith Fitzgerald and Grunwald, J and Rainbird, Sophia} } @article {bnh-2314, title = {Practical decision tools for improved decision-making in complex, time-constrained and multi-team environments: Annual project report 2014-2015}, number = {126}, year = {2015}, month = {10/2015}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

This annual report presents information about the Bushfire and Natural Hazard CRC funded project: Cognitive Decision Strategies, which is concerned with decision making, team monitoring and organisational performance in emergency management.\ 

As the incidents associated with natural hazards increase in complexity, duration, and the number of agencies involved, there is likely to be an increased frequency of degraded operational situations, breakdowns within and between teams and the occurrence of errors. These problems will play out within the context of a decreasing tolerance in the community and their political representatives to emergency management coordination failure.\  The current project has three main research streams that aim to: Provide enhanced methods of making decisions in complex situations; develop methods to better monitor teams to detect breakdowns and disconnects that can impair operational performance; and to develop enhanced methods for agencies to evaluate and learn from their operational performance.

Towards this end the research team have visited 18 agencies in Australia and New Zealand to collect data and discuss the issues around decision making, team monitoring and to identify how agencies currently assess and learn from reviewing their organisational performance.\  The team has discussed the research and/or collected data with: chief officers, deputy chief officers, principle rural fire officers (NZ), state coordination personnel, regional coordination personnel, and incident management team personnel.\  These personnel represented urban fire brigades, rural fire agencies, land management agencies, state emergency services, council officers with responsibility for search and rescue, the Red Cross and the National Rural Fire Authority (New Zealand).\ \  In addition, we have conducted a number of research studies and observations, including: Literature reviews, semi-structured interviews with senior staff, observations of real-life and simulated events and an online survey.

This has provided the team with information about current practice in decision making, team monitoring and learning from evaluating organisational performance across Australia and New Zealand.\  Comparing current practice to the research literature provides opportunities to develop enhanced methods of developing decision making, monitoring teams and assessing organisational performance.\  For example, using skill-based training to enhance peripheral vision \& memory in decision making, developing breakdown indicators that can indicate a malfunctioning team for team monitoring, and unpacking the values and challenged that enable and constrain learning from reviews of organisational performance.\  These strategies and methods will be investigated, developed and evaluated through close consultation with end-users in the next stages of the project.

}, issn = {126}, author = {Christopher Bearman and Brooks, B and Owen, Christine and Steve Curnin and Keith Fitzgerald and Grunwald, J and Rainbird, Sophia} } @proceedings {BF-4331, title = {The Problems of Maintaining Effective Teamwork During Out-of-Scale Events}, year = {2013}, url = {http://www.bushfirecrc.com/resources/research-report/problems-maintaining-effective-teamwork-during-out-scale-events}, author = {Christopher Bearman and Owen, Christine and Brooks, B and Grunwald, J} }