Information Requirements for Crisis Response – A Radio Perspective

I take the position that differing and contradictory viewpoints or perspectives help shed light on the many gaps and issues the industry faces. As such, I invited Terry Canning to provide a guest post in response to my recent post on redefining information requirements for disaster response. The views expressed are his own. We welcome your thoughts in the comments below!

A couple of weeks ago Brandon wrote a thoughtful and thought-provoking blog describing how the information requirements for successful crisis response is being redefined.  He opened with “Developing information requirements for crisis response is a tedious and flawed process filled with many uncertainties…”  In a reply, I agreed with his postulation that it can be a tedious process (although I proposed fastidious rather than tedious) but disagreed that it is flawed.  Brandon then challenged me to write a response to fully explain my position on this issue – and I have accepted.

To put my comments in perspective I have been a volunteer fire fighter for over 35 years and a chief officer for 15 of those years, having retired in December of 2013.  For the past 16 years I have been engaged as a radio communications consultant with the Province of Nova Scotia, Canada, where I was responsible for coordinating emergency communications.  My role also included ensuring radio interoperability for twelve provincial government departments, two regional municipalities, four federal government departments, several NGO’s with public safety roles, the provincial police service (RCMP) and 285 volunteer fire departments. The volunteer fire service encompasses over 9000 volunteer fire fighters.  All of these users share a common, single 700 MHz, province-wide trunked radio system, operating at 86 sites.  My focus on the radio ‘tool’ is intentional, as that is my background and strength; there are certainly other tools that contribute to success. 

In order to achieve full situational awareness (the ultimate objective of gathering, storing and sharing information) for crisis response, all engaged response parties must be able to communicate directly with all others in real time, as required, and as authorized.  This is the foundation of the successes realized by the many agencies and orders of government utilizing the second generation trunked mobile radio system in Nova Scotia.  Rather than competing for limited precious radio spectrum and even more elusive capital funding, an attitude of cooperation and system resource sharing has created a model for information sharing and universal situational awareness.

This may seem to be only moderately related to the topic of redefining information requirements for crisis response, however my point is that with real time interagency communications using the one-to-many capability of two-way radio, there is much less need to gather and store information.  Instead my suggestion is that the parties with the information essential for an effective crisis response be brought directly into the picture utilizing the radio system – thus every stakeholder is aware of all pieces of the puzzle.

The Nova Scotia approach has resulted in much less time defining requirements and dramatically more accurate and timely information during a response. There are basically three components employed in the Nova Scotia model:

1) A process of post incident analysis

Engage all incident stakeholders to perform a thorough, frank and inclusive debriefing after every significant multi-agency incident, and, ensure the learnings from these analyses are incorporated into go-forward response plans.  Of course each of the typical incident response agencies maintains their own standard procedures and protocols, but they are developed and refined in light of the information gathered from the analysis and debriefing process. 

2) A stakeholder interoperability lessons learned forum

To emphasize the positive learnings, the province hosts an annual Interoperability Forum, attended by key agency representatives, where incidents of the previous year are reviewed and discussed from a communications perspective and the attendees are invited to interact and learn with and from their counterparts. 

3) A formal interoperability advisory group

The Radio Interoperability Nova Scotia Advisory Council (RINSAC) is made up of designated municipal, provincial and federal agency representatives to consider, vet and advise on government initiatives to optimize the provincial radio system.  RINSAC members may also present proposals from constituent users to the provincial radio authority for consideration.  Through these three channels, a suite of best practices and most effective information sharing approaches are developed.

I fully endorse Brandon’s categorization of the three types of information surrounding crisis response and his assertion that they are types, not levels of information.  It is impossible to accurately predict which party will require what piece(s) of information at any particular point in time during a response. Thus, a fully interoperable radio communications system encompassing all stakeholders, is key to ensuring those who hold required information can promptly and accurately communicate it to those who need it during a crisis response. As a result, the requirements for pre-incident information collection and storage is reduced, eliminating noncurrent information and minimizing inaccurate information. 

A Radio Case Study

From my perspective, the responses to significant crises situations involving multiple agencies almost always have ineffective, underutilized, or non-existent interoperable voice communications paths or protocols amongst responders, resulting in much less efficacy in the crisis response. The penultimate objective of information management must be to overcome the information vacuum (or at least the gaps) that accompanies many crises situations. The advent of the Nova Scotia shared Trunked Mobile Radio system has resulted in less post-incident debriefings that that point to ‘communications’ as being the biggest failure in the response – a huge achievement.

Obviously there are other approaches to glean and share crisis response information, but I would argue that there are probably no better or more effective, or more timely methods, than the use of system wide, shared talkgroups.  Every one of the almost 10,000 radios on the Nova Scotia provincial system is required to have the standard suite of interoperability talkgroups: eight provincial ‘mutual aid’ talkgroups and two interprovincial ‘mutual aid’ talkgroups shared with users in the neighbouring provinces of New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.   

The other key ingredient to effectively sharing timely and accurate information during a crisis response is regular and repeated user training.  Radio user training in Nova Scotia is provided by a dedicated provincial trainer who provides training directly to the users, or disseminates knowledge through a ’Train the Trainer’ approach.  All too frequently when shared radio systems are implemented, user training is provided to familiarize the users with their new ‘tools’ and technology, but post implementation, training programs are eliminated or dramatically down-sized.  Experience would suggest that with the rate of turn-over of emergency response personnel (particularly in the volunteer sector) an ongoing training and refresher program, including table-top exercises, is of critical importance. 

A very valuable educational ‘tool’ has been the development of a communications module attached to the ICS 200 program.  This module takes about 25-30 minutes to deliver and helps the command level responder to focus on aspects of communications that is – or should be - of most concern to her/him.  It emphasizes the shared nature of the trunking system, the range of agencies that use it, and the established methods of ensuring all potentially involved users are aware of the shared talkgroup assignment and its purpose.

To quote Brandon again, “We are doing ourselves a disservice if we focus on predictable information needs in an environment where the most valuable information is unpredictable!”  I fully agree with this premise, and suggest that rather than struggling to gather, store, then quickly share information in response to the unknown, unexpected or unprecedented crisis, we do ourselves a much greater service by making the effort to develop cooperative, collaborative, shared radio communications systems and policies that enable real-time sharing of any information relevant to any response party engaged in the crisis.  

Redefining Information Requirements for Crisis Response

Developing information requirements for crisis response is a tedious and flawed process filled with many uncertainties about the situation and the response. While we can take an honest stab at knowing what different responders need, when, and how, our unilateral focus on needed information stymies the best of intentions: historical learning is only as good as a similar future, which is rarely the case; and visioning workshops are only as good as the ability to identify the uncertainties that lie ahead, a very difficult task with severe consequences if something is missed. 

While decisions can be made without needed information based on expertise and experience, this is far from ideal in a complex adaptive system such as crisis response (another important topic, but no room in this post!). Every move one makes (small or large) can have significant positive and/or negative impacts on system performance, not to mention possible interaction effects of different decisions and actions. Information is therefore a lifeline for decision makers when evaluating the consequences of different decisions and actions. Information provides important cues that help decision makers develop accurate representations of the system and the situation in order to better leverage their expertise and experience.

In more certain work environments with repeatable tasks, decisions, and problems (e.g., manufacturing), information requirements can be refined through thorough investigation and iterative development. But crisis response is far more uncertain about the tasks, decisions, and problems that will be encountered. Planning activities can help, but they will never be 100% ready. Unanticipated situations will always be encountered for which one must react in the moment. Additionally, information are often not created and available until a crisis occurs, so it is hard to plan for its use.  

We need a dedicated strategy and approach to information management (collection, processing, and sharing of data/information) that balances flexibility with standardization and that extends beyond technical interoperability (similar to our response management paradigms). People, policies, programs, processes, and products all need to align to inform and improve the handling of the known-knowns (e.g., will set up a point of distribution), the known-unknowns (e.g., how public will react), and the unknown-unknowns (e.g. unforeseen circumstances) encountered during a crisis response. 

This is not an easy endeavor and requires radically different thinking that embraces the uncertainty associated with crisis response. We are doing ourselves a disservice if we focus on predictable information needs in an environment where the most valuable information is unpredictable! 

Tackling this issue will likely take the better part of my career, but it is important to start somewhere. As you consider your information requirements, I suggest you consider the following information requirement types:

Type A - Clearly Needed Information

First, it is important to outline the information that is clearly known to be needed. Bite off the top layer of information needed by each role. These are the absolutes that you know the role(s) need to have. Be judicious, though, as your information management plan will most definitely provide you with ALL this information and you don't want to overload responders. 

Type B - Likely Helpful Information

Second, consider what information should not be delivered, but rather immediately available to responders if they decide they need it. This is information one could presume might be needed, but is hard to define when, where and how it will be useful. This information should be made available and easily accessible to responders without distracting or overloading them.

Type C - Supporting Information Sources

Lastly, because it is unlikely that you will have envisioned all possible information needs, consider how your responders can access different sources of information that will allow them to find the information they need on the spot. This is hard as you need to build relationships and technical integrations ahead of time to execute well.  

There are two things to notice about my suggested information requirement types. First, I call them types rather than levels. This is because the relationship between them is dimensional, not linear or hierarchical. Type C information can be just as important as Type A information. Second, they assume a "role-based" perspective on information requirements gathering. Collecting information requirements at an organizational level obfuscates the information needs of individual responders who are the true consumers of information. Plus, if you know the role-based information needs of individual responders, you can more easily discern the organization's overall information needs through aggregation and comparison of all the information required in each role. This then sets you up to develop an information system that meets organizational needs through knowledge of individual responders' information needs.   

I hope this helps you expand your understanding of requirements gathering and rethink what is "needed" in light of the many uncertainties that crises bring. The goal here is to intentionally and strategically approach information management such that you are giving your responders the best possible chance of obtaining available information they need, when and how they need it. I don't address the timing aspects and delivery methods of information needs here, but they are indeed also very important (perhaps another blog post!). 

I look forward to your comments!

What are Decisions Makers' Needs in Sudden Onset Disasters?

One of the greatest problems we face in disaster management is understanding the type and breadth of decisions that we make during a disaster.

So much goes into decision making that we need to devote significant research and effort to putting this skill in a better perspective so that better tools and approaches can be developed. Long gone should be the days of making decision "off the cuff." Decisions, despite their impending urgency and seriousness, should be as purposeful, collaborative, and as science-based as possible.

Andrej Verity, a disaster responder and Information Management Officer for UN-OCHA just released a report from a workshop on Field-Based Decision Makers' Information Needs. Here is a link to the full report.  The main authors included leading researchers Erica Gralla (GWU), Jarrod Goentzel (MIT), and Bartel Van De Walle (Tilburg). Check out Andrej's great introductory post on Demystifying decisions makers' needs in sudden onset disasters.

The report focuses heavily on the decision-makers' perspective.  It asked what decisions are typically made and then separately, what are the information needs in sudden onset disasters? Ultimately, the decisions and information needs will be linked in future research.

One  goal  of  this  workshop  was  to  help  Volunteer  and  Technical  Communities  (VTC)  to  understand  the  information  field  decision-‐makers  require  to  make  the  best  possible  decisions.  These  results  lay  a  foundation  for  this  understanding,  by  providing  (1)  a  framework  and  set  of  information  required  by  field-‐based  decision-‐makers,  (2)  categories  and  types  of  decisions  made  by  decision-‐makers,  and  (3)  a  large  set  of  brainstormed  decisions  from  workshop  participants.  VTCs  and  others  seeking  to  support  humanitarian  action  by  providing  and  organizing  information  can  utilize  these  results  to  (a)  prioritize  their  efforts  toward  important  information,  and  (b)  organize  their  information  in  a  manner  intuitive  and  useful  to  humanitarian  decision-‐makers

Check out pages 7-8 for great pictorials of the following findings regarding decisions and information requirements:

Decision dimensions and categories are broken down by timeframe, scope, locus/authority of decision-making, criticality, frequency/duration of decision, information gap (confidence), and function.

Information requirements are broken down by context and scope, humanitarian needs, responder requirements, meta information, capacity and response planning, operational situation, coordination and institutional structures, and looking forward.

Does this resonate with your work?  Why or why not?