The descriptions of the various schools of thought regarding decision making pro-vide a starting point for discussing decision making in relation to the various situa-tions that are described in the chapter’s introduction. A problem is that the scien-tific theories are of two types, namely normative and descriptive. Classic decision making is oriented to how decision making as a selection act between various alternatives is conducted in the best manner, meaning a normative orientation. This requires that one has a static situation in which there is ample time to prepare the various alternati-ves and that there are uniform goals for the selection act, namely that the selection leads to the greatest possible benefit based on one aspect, and that there is ample time to weigh the various alternatives against one another. Making decisions
accor-ding to this school of thought means choosing between the defined alternatives.
The other schools embrace so-called descriptive theories. This means that they are not oriented to indicating how decisions should be made, but rather to descri-bing how people make decisions in realistic, dynamic, complex and unclear situations. Based on the perspective of these schools, making decisions is not just concentrated to choo-sing between various alternatives. It is rather uchoo-sing a mixture of more or less rapid thought and action so as to gradually attempt to gain control of a situation. Deci-sion making means being able to quickly interpret and understand the situation and find a strategy to deal with it. One can say that decision making becomes a process with which one can attempt to control another process, namely the dyna-mic, complex and diffuse situation.
Bearing in mind the wide range of meanings for the term decision making, we can now discuss what decision making can be in incident command related to the previously mentioned emergencies and crises.
Being an incident commander at a residential fire means being able to quickly decide what is to be done. The situation is characterised by the fire spreading and that people may be in danger. There is no time to act in accordance with how deci-sions should be formulated according to the normative model of classic decision making. Klein (1986, 1993) describes how decision making is conducted in such a situation. Klein belongs to the naturalistic school of thought described above. He maintains that an important starting point for the incident commander is recog-nition. As an expert, an incident commander has experience of similar situations.
He or she also has experience of a repertoire of action patterns from similar situa-tions. In a situation where time is at a premium, the incident commander decides on an action that seems reasonable for gaining control of the situation based on his or her experience. It is not a decision concerning the best alternative, but rather a quick ‘intuitive’ decision to take an action that hopefully is sufficiently good.
The incident commander’s decision making in a dynamic situation is conduc-ted with the starting point in the school of dynamic decision making. The orienta-tion is to gain control of a diffuse and unclear, dynamic situaorienta-tion, not to choose the best alternative among alternatives defined in advance, with ample time and in a stable environment. The incident’s dynamics place demands on the incident commander’s decision making abilities in real-time. The incident commander’s decisions affect the incident’s dynamics, which in turn affect the incident commander’s next decision, which affects the incident’s dynamics, and so on. The sequential process is emphasised in the school of dynamic decision making.
The type of emergency has significance for how decision making can be conduc-ted. The emergency can in principle be viewed as either dynamic or static. A fire is dynamic. It spreads without actions being taken. The situation after a traffic acci-dent, when two cars have collided and have come to a stop on the road, can be viewed as a static situation. The actual collision is dynamic when kinetic energy is transformed into other energy forms, but afterwards a state of rest occurs. Such a static response situation can be stable or instable. A stable situation means that there is no danger for change. An instable situation means that an imprudent
action can worsen the situation. After an earthquake, for example, an imprudent action can make things worse.
With accidents that result in static response situations, decision making can be conducted more in line with the approach of the classic school. After the incident in Borlänge, where a freight train with LPG wagons derailed and then came to a standstill in the marshalling yard without leakage, such a situation occurred. The tactical orientation is to secure the situation and to find a safe method for removing the damage rolling stock. There is time to carefully analyse the situation, define possible alternatives, analyze which alternatives are best and finally choose an alter-native. Being cautious and taking time is well-justified in such a context.
Response situations are such that not just one decision maker can deal with the situation. Several decision makers on the same command level and on different command levels must jointly deal with the situation. The knowledge provided by the school of distributed decision making is applicable for response situations. The-se are characteriThe-sed by decision makers acting on different command levels and that decision makers from various response organisations must coordinate their decisions on various command levels. The approach presently used in the Swedish fire service – that command is exercised by a system’s tasks being structured in various components (SRSA, 1998) – is a concrete application of distributed decision making. General decisions in the normative component provide the framework for decision makers in the ‘lower’ components when taking actions. Decision making is distributed from the normative component downwards through the other compo-nents.2
An important circumstance is the time horizon that one has at one’s disposal when decisions are to be made. It is usually short time horizons that are available during emergency response operations. The time horizon can be discussed in relation to decision making on various command levels. Decision making at the incident site must usually be conducted with very short time horizons, especially at the begin-ning of a response operation and before control has been gained over the situation.
Decision making can be described in accordance with Klein’s (1987) model of recog-nition-based decision making. On higher command levels and/or in work with hig-her command components, according to the Swedish Rescue Services Agnecy (1998), there is the requirement for being able to work with both short and long time hori-zons. Decision making on these levels and/or in components can thus take different forms. It can be described in the way that the schools for dynamic and naturalistic decision making specify, but in cases when the time horizons are long, decision making can also have forms that are in keeping with the school of classic decision making.
Jacobs and Jaques (1991) are two theoreticians who have interesting views on decision making and demands on decision makers on various command levels. A central aspect of their theoretic reasoning is that decision makers on high com-mand levels must have the ability to work with conceptual abstractions. This means,
2. Cedergårdh and Winnberg, in their chapter Structuring Command Organisations, discuss how distributed decision making can function in command organisations.
for example, being able to work with perceptions of the overall state of an emer-gency and how the dynamics will develop. The decision maker should be able to perceive this without actually being able to view the entire situation. He or she should be able to construct such perceptions based on indirect information in vari-ous forms. Other perceptions that a decision maker on a higher level must work with are perceptions or working hypotheses of possible outcomes to ongoing events.
With all of these perceptions as a basis, a goal orientation and an action strategy must be formulated. These are all abstractions. Such goal orientation and action strategy can then be replaced in, for example, a general decision. Jacobs and Jaques are of the opinion that decision making on high levels is more a matter of correctly introducing order in an incident’s complexity, rather than choosing the best solu-tion among a number of alternative solusolu-tion proposals. The core of this line of reaso-ning is that command on high levels should consist of constructing an understanda-ble frame of reference that in some manner can serve as a ’chart’ of the emergency and the strategy with which the emergency is to be dealt with. This understandable frame of reference then functions as the starting point for decision making on lower command levels.
The presentation above of the various schools of decision making, and the discu-ssion on what decision making is in various decision situations in incident com-mand, show that decision making is something that can take on various forms and be described in different ways. The varying conditions of varying situations are cru-cial to how decision making can take form and to which demands can be placed on decision making. Such important conditions are the amount of time available, the type of incident and the level of command.
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