 You guys are making progress on Dave Get a little warm for them And 510 are you getting your folks in there? Okay? They're trying to get organized. Well, you better tell them to hustle it up that fingers head right toward your tail right now You're still on hold we're gonna get that helicopter out in front of that thing off the ground Yeah, I'm doing the best they can George Not gonna be Mike that's getting gonna be pretty hot right behind your tail here from in a minute here and They can't get their stuff in gear there and that starts picking up speed you might want to just to load them up and I understand Just that little waiting right there Changed our strategy here now That thing really broke out of the parameter didn't it? Yeah engine 2050 BLM team of action Mike I guess I just have to tell you this imperative get those guys in and get them out of there We're on smoke Creek Grants road Is there a marker? 510 did you copy that up there? Get them on the helicopter. They're not reacting. They're on the main road coming in to pull 06 Tacker 12, we're on downwind. You want us to get something between the helicopter and that fire? Yeah, let's go try it All right, Mike, we're gonna come right across between the head and you with a tanker right now just stay on the ground right there for a second Thank you Get your folks on that helicopter now You got your folks out of there Okay, thanks now. Okay, hold on. He's coming out to the west and he's got his Later Okay, it's warming up guys You see the helicopter bending to the west and what we've done is we're gonna go ahead and change strategies now as the Heal of the fire is on the west side We want to take the right flank where it starts to burn hot and carry it on toward the east Or if you want to come back against the wind, it might be a little smoky. We'll start playing Okay, Mike, thanks for your help there What the ancients called a clever fighter is one who not only wins but excels in winning with ease Hence his victories bring him neither reputation for wisdom nor credit for courage He wins his battles by making no mistakes 2,500 years ago the Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu outlined the first recorded military theories a Book of strategies and tactics that continues to be used in military training today What has made Sun Tzu's writings timeless was his focus his theories were not concerned with the latest Technological advancements, but rather they concentrated on the human aspect of waging war the art of directing and Coordinating an army he wrote about making tactical decisions keeping up morale and assuring good communication This was not an easy task in Sun Tzu's time keeping an army of more than 100,000 soldiers coordinated Communicating and ready for action was difficult The struggle was a human one in the following 25 centuries Empires rose and fell based on the decisions of their kings leaders commanders and soldiers Throughout history the importance of the human factor is a lesson that has been continuously learned Forgotten and learned again The lessons were not limited to the battlefield History has ample records of great expeditions projects and adventures that succeeded or failed on the decisions actions and reactions of the men and women involved In our lifetime we've witnessed amazing technological advancements for example message runners Which were used until the early 1900s are now replaced by radios and satellite data links But under all the technological advancements lies this core truth the controlling mechanism is still the human mind through modern technologies we've extended our control over our environment to unparalleled levels But just as human abilities to think and reason can be turned into great accomplishments Common human errors can result in great failures Now more than ever we realize that as the use of advanced technological tools increases So does the responsibility to manage and hone our mental tool set Advanced technology does not excuse us from thinking but rather advanced technology provides us reason to think harder Although improvements in technology have eased our lives in countless ways It has also enabled us to work and play in new extreme environments Here the difference between life and death depends as much on the strength of your mind as on the amount of high-tech equipment you take with you Today more than ever before people are engaging in high-risk activities in extreme environments Many are drawn by the personal challenge for others. It's their business Those who become the very best at functioning in these extreme environments are the ones who constantly strive to improve their performance and skills Working in an extreme environment is difficult enough for one or two people But what about having to work in an extreme environment with many people? Across the world countless organizations face the daunting task of coordinating the actions of many people in high-risk work environments Reducing risk in these work environments means anticipating human error so it can be avoided whenever possible And when errors do occur they're detected and handled right away For example the launch and recovery operations aboard an aircraft carrier Requires split second timing and the coordination of hundreds of people in this environment The tolerance for error is low and Expectations for performance are high This organization works continuously to reduce the frequency of error as a standard part of the job Now let's look at another organization and how they deal with human error This unit of Special Forces soldiers is preparing for a counterinsurgency mission here They're rehearsing to target and interdict key guerrilla lines of communication as part of standard operating procedure They debrief the day's events against their performance objectives Okay, so I'm gonna facilitate the AAR Basically, let's go over what what was the plan what was supposed to happen? Rob you wanna Okay plan was obviously to capture the The courier and a neutralized the practice helps to assure that each member understands What happened and plans are made to improve the team's performance in the next engagement? During the debrief the team reviews both good and substandard performance Here they focus on adherence to standard operating procedures techniques and errors and make plans to correct errors during the next engagement Why don't we hear from you because you were our right anchor? What did you see as you well actually let's start with Chris because you took the sniper shot So had it had a clear view of the objective the only thing I felt like because I was way too close to the target Uh-huh. I felt like I wanted to been farther back out over in the trees or something, but Identified the target identified the bag and took the shot. I think I hit Even though some of these soldiers are participating as instructors They all continuously work as students to learn that's because this soldier and the organization. He works for Understands an undeniable truism Regardless of the latest technological advancements in equipment and weaponry the most versatile and important tool in this Dynamic high-risk work environment is his own mind Here we see another high-risk work environment only this isn't a training exercise. This is the real thing And here as in any extreme environment the chances for error are high and the potential consequences are grave Because wildland fire is a dynamic high-risk and sometimes extreme environment It makes sense that you as a firefighter should know yourself as well as your technical tools And that in a nutshell is the purpose of this program To familiarize you with a mental tool set and to help you understand your Responsibility for using these tools so you can work effectively as part of a team operating in a high-risk environment Now what do I mean by your responsibility? In the extreme environments we saw earlier those people understood a professional duty and the duty isn't about simply showing up and being there It's about minimizing unnecessary risk executing plans and adapting to changes as they occur a Professional is always aware of their situation and learns to recognize the factors that are most important a Professional is part of the team working with other people again and again in an environment that poses many hazards and challenges Doing it right and without unnecessary risk a Professional takes on the responsibility to think to learn from their experiences and to do a better job each day This aspect of the job never ends and it's sometimes the hardest part of the job Hi Welcome to human factors on the fire line During this session. I'll be one of your guides as we talk about a series of human performance concepts Designed specifically for you a wildland firefighter There are three basic objectives for this program. The first is awareness now by that I mean recognizing and understanding some of the basic human performance issues and problems when you encounter them on the line The second is tools Just as there's a set of tools for every tactic we employ on the line There's also a mental tool set for many of the common human problems we encounter and the third is practice As you all know mastering any tool takes a lot of time and practice These mental tools are no different. So throughout the course of this program We'll be taking some time to try out a few of these tools so you can get a feel for them Before we get started, let me put a couple things on the table first This isn't a safety program although many of the topics we'll be discussing have obvious safety ramifications The focus here is on doing things correctly and minimizing error Safety is a result of doing things correctly Secondly, this program is not about fixing a problem It's simply about making you aware of some tools and concepts that can make you better at what you're already trained to do fighting fire Take a look at this example here at the US Navy Top Gun School Professional Navy pilots pilots who are already flying combat missions are taken back to school to learn how to be the very best pilots In this school every maneuver action Tactic and technique is broken down into its primary pieces and then reassembled again with a better understanding Pilots learn not only what to do, but also why they do it This better understanding helps them to improvise react and be more effective in this dynamic environment In a sense this program does the same thing on a smaller scale You've been dealing with human factors since you were born You're well acquainted with many common human factors. You know them as stressed out tired frustrated or overloaded Here we'll take these familiar factors break them down and talk about them Then later on we'll put them all back together again and apply them to your work on the fire line The success of a program like this depends on a team effort I'll be responsible for demonstrating some of these concepts as will your instructor and your instructor will provide plenty of Opportunities for you to discuss the concepts and apply them to your individual circumstances To do this you'll work through a series of exercises with others in your class and you'll be asked to think about your individual situation and Identify some tools or techniques to improve your fire line performance Finally, you'll be given an opportunity to try some of these tools This mental tool set will include techniques to improve communication in high-risk situations including specific communication responsibilities a self-check for your situation awareness a risk management decision aid and basic teamwork guidelines By the time we finish today You'll have a better grasp of what can cause human errors in your work and what you can do to anticipate and mitigate them You'll have some good ideas about how to make yourself a better firefighter and you'll have some tools to help you accomplish that So without any further delay Let's get going This pilot is en route to a mission to bomb an enemy radar site And if you think there isn't much going on right now think again During this mission the pilot keeps a mental picture of his relative position in space through use of the plane's Instrumentation and using outside references if they're available He constantly updates his mental image of his position relative to the target the changes in the terrain Enemy threats and even the air tanker that will refuel him after he's completed his mission Although the environment is real the way the pilot reacts to the changes in the environment is based totally upon his perception If his perception of the situation doesn't include all the critical factors Such as an enemy missile heading his way then too bad so sad as the pilots say Reality always wins in the end Understandably he's motivated to make his perception of the environment match reality as closely as possible And how well his perception matches reality is called situation awareness or SA So how does situation awareness work? The fire doesn't change because of how you perceive it The fire changes in part based on what actions you take or don't take The action you take depends on the decisions that you make and What you decide is based on how you perceive the situation if you don't have a good grasp of the situation Your decisions and actions probably won't be effective in the real environment We're gonna get into decision-making later in the program But right now let's take a close look at situation awareness since it's at the root of everything an effective firefighter does Everyone starts with an initial perception of what's going on This initial perception forms as the result of your past experience and your current attitudes But your initial perception is only a starting point Continuously you gather new information updating and changing your perception of the situation When you sat down to view this program, you had an initial perception call it a size-up about the program This will probably be a drag or this should be interesting Between then and now you've continuously updated your assessment gathering more information and changing it as appropriate This cycle is called the situation awareness or SA cycle and it continues as long as you're awake Everyone has some level of situation awareness Paying attention is one part of situation awareness, but another part of it is knowing what to pay attention to knowing what's important Here are some homeowners fighting fire to protect their property as Inexperienced firefighters most of these people don't know what things to look for or how to identify dangerous problems No matter how hard they work physically today The situation awareness and the effectiveness of these new firefighters will not be good until they know and understand More they'll depend on intuition and luck to keep them out of harm's way Information must be continuously gathered into the situation awareness cycle to keep it up to date During this process you take in new information from a variety of external sources Most sources fall under two general categories Information you observe directly and information that's communicated to you from others Without new information your situation awareness cycle will go stale In the perfect world our situation awareness would encompass every factor in the environment But that isn't realistic on the fire line many things compete for our attention Distraction is a real problem Also, we can't directly observe or understand all the information that constantly Bombards us to handle the load our brains naturally filter out parts of the environment that we deem as not important When you're working on a fire what pieces of information do you gather to size up your situation? Superintendent six six two not quite there should be there approximately two minutes Good copy You have a duty as professional firefighters to establish and maintain effective communications at all times Good communication is vital to your awareness of the work environment and to your crew's ability to perform at their highest level We've all studied the watch out situations these watch outs are clearly identified fire line hazards The three communications watch outs shown here will definitely affect your situation awareness We also know about the standard firefighting orders The firefighting orders are a tool used to help mitigate major fire line hazards Communication is also interwoven into all ten of these orders How will you get a forecast without the ability to communicate? Pretty hard to get much information about the fire without communicating with someone How will individual firefighters know what the fire is doing or expected to do without communication? How will you make the escape routes known without communicating that information to others? What good are lookouts without communication? Without good communication, how will you get the information you need to think clearly and act decisively? This is a pretty easy one, isn't it giving clear instructions is a big part of good communication Maintaining control without being able to communicate now that would be a challenge Establishing good communication is the foundation for safe and effective operations You can see by this quick look through our fire safety guidelines that communication is one of the most critical functions on the fire line Almost nothing can happen in a firefighting operation without effective communication I mean just think of all the things we have to communicate during a fire weather observations fire behavior changes requests for more resources warnings Work instructions new safety zone and escape route locations The list is endless On the fire line There are as many ways to communicate as there are things to communicate and you're required to be proficient in many of them How well you can use these methods directly affects your situation awareness your effectiveness and ultimately your safety We've talked about communications in general and we've seen some examples of effective communication We know that good communication is critical to both individual and crew situation awareness But just what does all that mean to you? How do we get good communication on the fire line? Communication is the exchange of information any communication requires a sender the talker a receiver the listener and a method to deliver the information Since communication requires both a talker and a listener It's a little difficult to exchange information when both people are talking So the model we'd like to use for the fire line is a lot like using this radio when one person talks the other one listens And when we talk about techniques for improving your communication skills I'd like you to think of them literally as tools a Pulaski a shovel chainsaw that you can pull out of your toolbox and apply to whatever communications task is at hand a Little while ago. We saw that communication has one talker the sender and one listener the receiver And we saw what happens when two people try to send and receive at the same time Confusion well one powerful tool to help achieve a clear understanding is switching roles between sender and receiver Frequently during a communication This kind of feedback this trade-off between talking and listening may sound like common sense But what's this example and see if it doesn't sound familiar? How you doing Charlie Bork from the square good to see you here Hey, we have a couple of small fires happening right now And I like to have you and your crew staff one of the fires, okay? They're gonna helicopter you in to one of them be prepared to stay for a couple days All right, and we'll get back to you. Okay All right How effective was their communication you notice there was only one sender and one receiver and they never switched roles Let's try it again. This time notice how much more information gets communicated with a little more give and take between the sender and the receiver Any questions? Yeah, who's the IC that would make a difference wouldn't it you will be the IC? Okay, do you have any information on the location of the fire and the area I'm going into? I will get a map for you and illegal and at this time You're looking at the fuel type as the same elevation as what we're at now, okay? Is there any specific hazards? I need to know about for my crew. Yeah at this time. I really don't know Okay, great. Just where's a helibase at and who's in charge? The helibase is about a half mile back up this road here. It's flagged to be on your left side there There's a helicopter manager there. I'll call and make sure that they know you're coming to manifest you and your crew Well, thanks a lot. I appreciate I just first time taking my crew and I don't want to screw up and make any major mistakes I understand that and any additional information. I'll be sure to relay on to you. Great. Appreciate it Now that's communication It took a little longer than that first exchange, but look how much more information was communicated Another tool that can help you communicate better is the direct statement. It's a little like communications on steroids It can be a very powerful tool for the sender direct communication is straight and to the point It cuts through any distraction and leaves very little room for misunderstandings The boomer seems like the winds coming out of the south now it feels a lot stronger than they predicted Think we're gonna have any problems down below By contrast indirect communication less committal and more roundabout leaves the sender and out Listen to this Seem like the winds picking up at all We don't naturally gravitate towards direct communication. It can be seen as assertive or even rude Sometimes when we bring up problems We kind of feel like we're going out on a limb and it could be pretty lonely out there But in the time-sensitive stressful environment of the fire line, especially when there are problems Direct communication is the preferred tool for clear and effective communication Direct statements are powerful tools, but they require some practice when we're done here We'll give you a chance to work with them a little There are six major components to a direct statement All of which help to assure that the communication process is solid First when you want to make a direct statement use the person's name that you're talking to This clearly establishes who is the intended receiver of your message Second use I I think I believe I feel Using I tells the other person that you're taking ownership of what you're about to say It makes it clear that the statement is coming from you and establishes you as the sender Third state your message as clearly as possible This helps assure the message gets there intact without being diverted or muddled by non-essential information Fourth use the appropriate emotion for your message. Yes emotion, but that's not to be confused with emotional When you communicate your message is always placed in a wrapping of emotion that conveys context things like urgency frustration or casualness as a sender your messages can get muddled when the message and the wrapping don't match up The listener won't be sure what your message really is You don't have to be overly dramatic, but it's just as important not to sabotage your message by understating your feelings Fifth require a response phrase your message so that it makes the listener obligated to respond One good way to end your statement is with a question to the listener such as what do you think or don't you agree? These imply that you're seeking a response to your statement Sixth and last don't let it go Don't let the other person off the hook or disengage the communication process until you're sure you've got a clear understanding Hey, Doug save the blue flame. Thanks Ever walk into your favorite restaurant and the waitress says to you the usual you got it. Okay Isn't that nice no big explanation That's the advantage of the standardized communications tool Tracy and I have developed an sop a standard operating procedure We've rehearsed it often enough that we both know the usual means two eggs over medium Hold the hash browns bacon extra crispy whole wheat toast with butter on the side And coffee with a cream and two sugars In this case two words convey the same meaning as 25 Standard communication procedures keep discussion to a minimum They also allow for faster integration of new crew members or between crews that haven't worked together before On the fire line when the pressure's on and time is short is when effective communication is needed most But this is also when the barriers are at their worst Frequent switching between sender and receiver is hard to do sometimes making regular communication almost impossible As firefighters we have to communicate quickly and get to the point That's why we have standard radio procedures signals symbols and definitions You never know from fire to fire who you're going to be working with So the more you know about standardized communications the easier it is to integrate into any ongoing operation Thank you very much looks great So far we've seen that as professional firefighters you have a duty to maintain communication to superiors and subordinates among your co-workers and with other crews at all times Open communication increases your crew's situation awareness We also talked about barriers to communication and tools you can use to improve your ability to communicate effectively Now we're going to bring all these together and apply them as your five communication responsibilities on the fire line briefing debriefing communicating hazards to others acknowledging and understanding messages Asking if you don't know These responsibilities are the final communication tool. We'll discuss The first communication responsibility is the briefing now You may have been to a pre-shift briefing and you probably think a briefing is something you get from your supervisor But that's not always true Everyone has the responsibility to brief others For example, when someone from another crew who may be new to the fire asks you what's happening You conduct a brief Yeah Hi, I just got in with a strike team of engines or we're looking for a division h Yeah, that's division h pretty big place. So we've got about six shock crews and a bunch of dozers here Pretty spread out. That sounds typical. This is my first big fire of the season Now I wish I could tell you where the division soup is but we just got dropped off here. We haven't seen him That's no big deal We're supposed to do a hose lay at drop point eight. Do you have any idea where drop point eight might be? Yeah, um drop point eight is about a quarter mile down the road and a big bend in the trees. You can't miss it It's just just right there. So Okay, cool. That sounds great. You guys been here a while? Yeah, I got here yesterday morning Oh, good. Can you give me some info on what's going on with the fire? Yeah, um got here yesterday morning and uh, this is division h um We uh The fire made a pretty good run up this slope right here Yesterday morning. Um, and about 1500 it We's had some problems with the fire behavior and spotting due to the winds yesterday and Um about 1500 and we're down here today. We're down here our crew Um flank in this side cutting off a bunch of fingers in preparation to burn tonight past drop point eight there Um They the expected weather for today is pretty much what it was yesterday hot and dry And um around 1400-1500. They're expecting these northwest winds To bring in some problem fire behavior And how far does uh, uh division h go down? Uh, just past drop point eight there and then it it turns into division i and You'll see a crew down there Mesa number one, I think and um how How brown is the crew boss? And that's about all I can tell you what attack frequency you guys working often? Uh 168 300 Okay. Hey, thanks a lot. I appreciate it. All right. No problem. Okay. You too The second communication responsibility is to debrief Exactly. What is a debrief? Well, there are a lot of terms for this process after action review critique postmortem exercise The names don't really matter, but the concept is vital The most successful high-risk work teams use this review process Now this isn't about whining or laying blame. It's about learning what happened So the next time around the crew performs a little better Now john you were kind of in the middle, right? I was one down from rich Yeah, so how did it go from your perspective? It seemed awfully slow Although a review of the fire might be useful after it's over The most effective after action review will occur right after each operational period This is when everything is still fresh in your mind and everyone that was there is still around This is the terrain we're fighting in we've got we're gonna either be going uphill or downhill and uh Sorry go ahead. No, it's all right. The other thing is too though is that you have to stop It's important not only for you to be there, but also to actively participate Every professional firefighter must evaluate what's happened and apply what he or she has learned That's the heart and soul of the after action review or aar as it's sometimes called The after action review consists of four basic parts What was planned? What actually happened Why did it happen? And what can we do better next time? Going through the debriefing process helps to improve you and your crew's performance each and every time you go out The third communications responsibility is to identify hazards for others This is essential for professionals working in any high risk environment Every firefighter has an obligation to keep others informed of potential danger In the military every paratrooper from general to private knows that during a jump when they see something they perceive as unsafe It's their duty to stop the jump They do this through using a standard signal of placing their hand palm forward on top of the anchor line cable This is their standard operating procedure for communicating a hazard and it's part of their professional duty Even if they're unsure about whether there's a problem or not These soldiers know it's better to run the risk of a little embarrassment if they're wrong Rather than have a death or injury of someone else on their conscience The leaders here usually make a point of recognizing that the person had the moral courage to do the right thing Regardless of whether or not there was a major hazard We've all seen what can happen to a message if it's not completely understood Which brings us to the next step in your communications responsibilities Remember a little while ago when I was talking about the importance of frequently changing roles between sender and receiver Well, this technique goes hand in hand with your responsibility to acknowledge and understand the messages you receive Just as direct statements reinforce the sender side of the communication process Receivers can also do things to make the process more effective That's what the responsibility to acknowledge and understand messages is all about Now one of the easiest ways to understand a message is simply to repeat the sender This is a common procedure in most standard radio communications South of say 63, they're gonna leave the ATIS runway heading and uh After the gear departure turned right heading 230 and join j7 I'll say 63 contact the parts You can do the same thing when you're in the role of the receiver This not only verifies that you have the message correct It also gives feedback to the sender that the message was understood The fire line is a constantly changing environment as a firefighter You're expected to adapt and change to meet the challenges these changing conditions present and still accomplish your mission So to be adaptable you have to understand the mission In the military they call this concept commander's intent Understanding the objectives of the mission enables soldiers to adapt and to improvise when events don't go as planned When we talk about the responsibility to acknowledge and understand a message a big part of understanding is knowing the sender's intent Have you ever been given instructions for a task where you weren't completely sure what you were expected to do? It happens doesn't it? Well as a supervisor giving instructions you need to make sure that the listener understands your intent And as a firefighter receiving those instructions you need to make sure you understand the message and its intent And that you acknowledge to the sender that you do understand If you don't ask questions Keep that communication cycle going until you know everything you need to know And that's the fifth communications responsibility If you don't know ask Watch out for firewalls firewall. What's a firewall anyway? What's a firewall? No, no, I said fire world. What's for fire world? Okay, fire world, you know fire world. Oh god Good leaders appreciate and value a crew member who asks questions because they know that crew member is paying attention and actively listening Good leaders also know that it's better to take the time to answer a question now than to fix a mistake later A variety of experience levels on a crew makes asking questions even more critical A new or lesser experienced crew member might not understand what the leader assumes everybody already knows If you're an experienced crew member You can set the tone for this responsibility by asking questions, especially at debriefings Even if you already know the answers your questions will help clarify the issues for lesser experienced members of the crew And set an example for the new crew members So they won't be afraid to ask questions in the future as a member of the team You've got the responsibility to make your co-workers better at what they do Earlier we saw a special forces team in action during a training mission If you'll recall the leader of the team began facilitating an after-action review immediately following the mission Now let's listen as that same leader mark smith discusses the history and purpose of the after-action review The practice as it exists now Probably came into to being In the 1980s in in the military as a result of officers after the vietnam war Getting together and wanting to re-institute a lot of these organizational learning practices and when I say re-institute Uh This stuff used to be done Thousand years ago Around the campfire at night, you know armies would would rarely fight at night. Most of them would fight during the day And at night the campfires would be lit And all the soldiers would sit around the campfire and basically talk about what happened that day talk about what went right Talk about what went wrong Help each other Diffuse the stress of seeing you know comrades that were killed or these kinds of traumatic things that happened And most importantly what to do different next time, which was usually when the sun rose You know, they had an immediate opportunity to apply that learning to the very next day of the battle Well, I think the last time that we as americans really saw this practice is in the civil war You know, we have a lot of median movies and stories and poetry and and whatnot that talks about that What happens around the campfire at camp at night with the soldiers? Um, then I think we go to world war one which dramatically changed how wars were fought Um, it was fought on a more round the clock basis or there was a lot of stagnation, but it wasn't very well used You know commanders were now miles into the rear and technology had enabled all these new things to go on and We lost that practice And where the roots of the modern a are really came back Was in world war two in the pacific in 1943 one of the foremost military historians sla marshal Was tasked by the center for military history to go uh and interview Soldiers and mass from the seventh infantry division after their campaigns in quaggling and the marshal islands in the pacific in 1943 And he had to develop these techniques of how to interview groups platoons companies of soldiers as a large group and Those techniques are really what came into the modern practice of the after-action reviews. So after vietnam A lot of officers and nco's felt frustrated that we weren't a learning organization in the army or the other armed services And that generation really rededicated to them themselves to bringing back The practice of organizational learning, which is how the after-action review came into being But essentially the practice really gained traction in our combat training centers Uh, that's where whole units uh 400 600 thousand people would go train for a month or so in a completely virtual combat environment It's very realistic. You know, you really feel like you're there in in this fictional country Fighting this enemy who are some of the best soldiers that the army has to offer and The need to continuously improve because if you didn't improve You were going to have your head handed to you by the bad guys the very next day So there's a lot of motivation to improve And that is really where the practice gained shape because people could see the immediate results They could talk about something they could do it in a professional way They could go out the very next day And implement it and watch their performance improve and you can't argue with results And so over over time throughout the 90s or late 80s early 90s the gulf war that practice really became accepted Oh, absolutely. There's a lot of parallel application right now in other environments, uh Talking about the combat training center and how we were able to use it to immediately see performance Now in online gaming you're seeing exactly the same thing all these groups of of people Spread all over the country or trying to work as a unit in these online games in advance to the next level They're getting their butts kicked by the game Yeah, they want to improve and they're they're literally doing virtual online AARs in order to improve but uh bmw cycle Regularly institutes after action reviews. So you're seeing it all throughout industry the medical profession Non-governmental organizations in africa are patterning themselves Off of that learning organization template Harvard business school, you know, dr. David garvin has written a lot of excellent material on Learning in action So it's really going to many environments and many industries and applications Uh, the the return on investment of an after-action review is almost immediate. So as your crew Conducts an after-action review on day two of a 14 day assignment You get to go right out the next day and apply that learning You know, you can decompose what happened on today's assignment Who is where? How did that fit against our plan? What caused those things to occur good bad indifferent? How do we do it again tomorrow and go immediately out and put those things into practice? So you get people who are innovating at the firefighter to level they are bringing innovation To the ground on that assignment on that division on that branch on that incident and hopefully that's occurring on every Every assignment going on on that incident People are going to feel bought in to what your crew is doing what the team's doing because they're part of the solution They're no longer part of the problem. They're there helping to fix it And if you can if you can get one percent better Every day in your assignment wherever it is whether it's ground unit support leader or your you know trail plasky on a hot shot crew That's got to lead to organizational success So far we've spent a lot of time on the concept of situation awareness as your connection to reality We've also focused on effective communication And we've looked at some ways that barriers can be reduced in order to improve our situation awareness and communication processes As you're probably starting to guess situation awareness serves as a foundation for many things And this is true for decision-making as well Fireline decision-making can be a complicated business The fire conditions and situation continually change the terrain weather Fuels and people all come together in a perpetually unique mix Firefighters face a wide range of variables in a high-risk environment Decisions force interaction with the environment. So decision-making is where your situation awareness meets real life head on Before we go any further Let's check your decision-making ability take 10 seconds to look at the following situation and decide what to do The correct action in this situation is a indirect attack be direct attack Or c disengage and gather more information. Well, what did you decide? I'm sure most of you were able to make a decision Doesn't really matter what the decision was you still made some kind of decision So your decision-making machinery is working just fine Decision-making machinery, what do we mean by that? For this vehicle's engine to start things like spark fuel and air are brought together at the right time And in the right amounts to make the starting process happen Even if the driver doesn't realize it getting this engine to start quickly and smoothly is a matter of process Not just turning the key Similarly your decisions don't just happen When you make a decision you follow a process whether you realize it or not Like situation awareness the decision-making process is fairly simple and like situation awareness You have the ability to open the hood on the decision-making machine and improve its performance a little The decision process like situation awareness is a cycle, but in this case the cycle moves between you and the outside world Although there are many academic descriptions for the process most of them boil down to four basic steps recognition option selection decision point and an action And this whole process runs against time The end result of the decision process is an action, which is how you interact with the outside world Your action will hopefully affect a desired change on the outside world Without your action the world just goes on without you That's why there's such an emphasis on decision-making in the fire environment Errors in situation awareness lead to errors in decision-making Bad decisions produce wrong actions or in some cases in action when actions should be taken Error chains such as this are the path to poor performance and accidents Just as it was for situation awareness and for communication There are tools you can use to improve your decision-making ability To show you what I mean, let's take a closer look at the decision-making cycle Your decision process starts with the realization or recognition that something is wrong Or that an important factor has changed It could be something that requires your reaction Or perhaps you decide to try and affect the outcome of a situation In all of these cases your awareness will start to focus around a particular problem or issue And you recognize that some future action may be necessary As you can imagine early recognition of a problem requires good situation awareness Say you're working the fire line and fail to notice that the fire has jumped the line behind you As long as you're not aware of it, you won't realize there's a problem If you don't notice this change in the environment Your decision process, which should lead you to action, never gets started The next step in the decision process is option selection That is choosing your course of action Depending on the time pressure and the situation, this step can be very quick or very involved If you remember only one word about option selection, it should be experience Now that may seem obvious, but in order to understand how you can improve your decision-making We first need to look at what experience is all about Experience, seasoning, wisdom, judgment, whatever you want to call it, everyone has it A person's life experience includes many activities and skills ranging from driving a car To playing a card game, to raising a child, and yes, to firefighting Some of this experience transfers from one subject to another Some of it doesn't Most of your firefighting experience has been acquired through three channels Training, field experience, and pre-planning Let's examine training first Training is a directed or guided experience just like what you're doing now Classroom, self-study, and field practice are all examples of training Training usually gives you a fundamental knowledge and understanding about a subject All right guys today, we're going to be releasing the class experience. It's real important to do that You should always take advantage of training when it's offered and strive to learn as much as you can from it Also remember that many training opportunities aren't scheduled or formal In fact, they sometimes come up when you least expect them If you don't know how something works be prepared to learn how it does If you know how it works be prepared to teach it to someone else Most of us think that training is good, but there's nothing like the real thing Field experience out on the line where principles and techniques that you learned in training are being applied The good thing about field experience is that it's as real as it gets But because field experience isn't directed and controlled like training, anything can happen By anything, I mean both good and bad lessons are learned through your field experience This is why the after-action review is so important As we saw before both good and bad performance is discussed during the after-action review The good lessons are reinforced while the bad lessons can be corrected on the spot The after-action review process helps to assure that everyone learns the right lessons in the field The third channel of experience is pre-planning Now you may ask, is pre-planning really experience? You bet it is Just as an aircraft simulator provides a virtual experience for these pilots Your mind provides a simulation when you go through the process of pre-planning something During the morning briefing and then as you travel to your assignment You visualize what your expectations are, what the fire behavior will be like The terrain, the hazards, the weather You think about what features might make good safety zones in this particular area You think about which indicators will tell you something has changed And how you might respond to those changes Establishing a good routine of doing pre-planning before embarking on an assignment Helps you to hone your recognition skills in advance And gives you a better understanding of what potential problems might crop up But pre-planning is not just for the new firefighter Routine pre-planning helps experienced firefighters guard against complacency And helps keep the awareness level up The pre-planning experience can be helpful, but it's a perishable commodity Once reality has overcome the scope of your plan The experience gained from the pre-planning effort is gone That's why it's important to be prepared for things to go wrong The better your pre-planning efforts, the more likely events will stay within your expectations Just as the virtual experience of pre-planning stops As soon as you stray too far from your plan Your other fire experiences only transfer to new situations in a general sense Your experience resource is only good as long as it's similar to situations you've seen before Once you stray very far from your previous experience Either in training, pre-planning, or your own field experiences You're in new decisional territory and that's an important realization to make Let's take a look at an example of this Sue has worked all of her six years fighting fire here in the southeast And most of her training has been done in this area She's been in a leadership role for her crew for the last two years Is a qualified crew boss and has worked in this fuel type and terrain frequently Much of her fire experience has been similar to today's assignment Of fire in palmetto and gallberry fuels In short, she's in familiar territory Technically Frank here is more experienced He's a qualified division supervisor and has almost twice as many years of fire experiences Sue, he spent two years as a smoke jumper in Alaska and is currently in charge of a Nevada-based engine crew Before today, he's fought only one fire in this part of the country His assignment today is to work with a tractor plow and he hasn't done that before Although very experienced, Frank is unfamiliar with the local factors The cumulative amount of relevant experience Frank can bring to bear on today's situation Is less than he's used to and he may be at a decisional disadvantage Although Frank can't increase his level of field experience right now He can compensate in other ways By seeking out a briefing on tractor plow operations And getting some quick training on the spot, Frank can improve his experience level He can also improve his experience level through a pre-plan Especially if it can be done in conjunction with other experienced personnel Your experience helps you only in situations that are similar to those you've encountered in the past As a firefighter, you can be sent to places with different fuels, unfamiliar weather patterns, or where the tactics they use are new to you So always ask yourself, am I getting all the information I need? Do I need a better briefing? Am I doing enough pre-planning for this situation? The responsibility is yours to recognize when you might be on unfamiliar ground And to answer all these questions for yourself They say you never run out of options, just out of time In other words, whether or not you select a course of action The situation will continue unabated The clock will keep on ticking Until eventually you lose the option to make an effective decision What happens during the option selection step varies Depending on the amount of time you have and how experienced you are In situations where you have time You can brainstorm some possible ways to approach the problem You can identify the possible options and carefully weigh the risks, the chances of failure, and the importance of the issue But in dynamic high-risk situations, fully developing and analyzing each possible course of action is not realistic, there just isn't time While inexperienced firefighters tend to be overwhelmed by the onslaught of information or time pressure and take longer to select their course of action Experienced firefighters seem to get through this process a lot easier and quicker Although the old hands seem to make decisions from their gut or by instinct These very experienced people are really just operating out of their experience pool Like everyone else They just have a bigger pool to draw from Meaning they've faced more situations And have the results of their decisions from those situations stored in their head The academic name for this process is Recognition Primed Decision Making, or RPD By matching the current situation with something they've already seen Experienced people can automatically select a viable option Without having to weigh the pros and cons of it If it worked before, it'll probably work again Because they have this pre-built reserve of options Experienced decision makers usually can handle stress and information overload Better than the new firefighter The race against time is the biggest factor that separates the experienced decision maker From the inexperienced decision maker So what's the newer firefighter to do? Just as pre-planning is an important tool to help you recognize problems It's also a great way to take the time pressure off your important decisions By pre-planning, you're essentially priming your decision machinery Setting up the recognition trip wires for expected or possible changes And then setting up possible solutions in advance So that you don't have to think about them on the spot when the pressure is on Pre-planning isn't limited to just before a shift It's just a planning activity before you do something There'll be times on the line when you've got to redraw a plan in mid-stride And keep going from there Now, except in extreme emergency situations There's always time to formulate some kind of a plan and get it communicated Doesn't have to be a long elaborate process It just has to cover the critical aspects of the task at hand Fire is starting to move across the drains there It looks like it might spot Yeah, that fire activity is definitely more than we'd expected today Yeah, escape route is right up there by those rocks Let's just head for it right now Well, the fire and the slope, I think we might not beat the fire to those rocks So why don't we go ahead and take a look at the map and look for a secondary escape route Okay Look here Last shift when I was down Snagit in this drainage There's a creek that runs along the bottom of it down into a marsh Which is right below our safety zone I think if we get down on that creek We'll be beneath the fire and we won't have to get above it and be in a good spot Sound like a good backup plan Let's do it then All right The backup plan those two firefighters just made Is called contingency planning Now that's important because the more plans we can make ahead of time The more time we have later to deal with those unexpected decisions We always have to face when Murphy's law comes into play As you move through the decision-making process You get to that critical decision point Where you must initiate an action in order to carry out the option you selected Now this action might impact many people Or it might be as simple as asking a question now rather than later Hopefully your decision and action change the situation for the better After which you maintain your situation awareness To analyze the new situation Look for changes and begin the whole cycle all over again If you know yourself how the process works And how to recognize barriers and errors within the process You'll be a big step ahead on the road For getting your decision-making machinery in top condition