Decision Making Archives - Page 2 of 44 - Situational Awareness Matters!™

Flawed Expectations of Personnel Can Impact Situational Awareness

Leave a Comment / Anger, Article, Attention Management, Checklists, Crew Resource Management, Decision Making, Distractions and Interruptions, Emotions, Firefighter Situational Awareness, Human Behavior, Human Factors, Leadership, Neuroscience, Risk Assessment, Safety, Situational awareness, Tacit Knowledge, Teamwork / Rich Gasaway

You develop situational awareness by using your senses to capture information (Level 1 situational awareness). Those clues and cues are then processed into understanding (Level 2 situational awareness). Once you understand what is happening, you can then make predictions of future events (Level 3 situational awareness). This article focuses on the third level of situational […]

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How Could They Be So Stupid?

8 Comments / Anger, Communications, Crew Resource Management, Culture, Decision Making, Ego, Firefighter Situational Awareness, Human Behavior, Incompetence, Leadership, Safety, Situational awareness, Training / Rich Gasaway

Recently I was having a conversation with a fire commander who shared the following experience. He stopped by one of the stations for a visit and came upon a group of firefighters huddled around a computer screen watching videos. Relax. This is not a lecture on watching inappropriate videos on fire department computers. In fact,

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Flawed Situational Awareness at Structure Fires

Leave a Comment / Article, Assumptions, Decision Making, Educational Products, Firefighter Situational Awareness, Safety, Situational awareness / Rich Gasaway

How significant (or stated another way… “How big a deal”) is flawed situational awareness as a contributing factor to firefighter near-miss events at structure fires? A. Not that big a deal B. Pretty big deal C. Really big deal (If you have attended one of my situational awareness programs you probably already know the answer

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Mayday Radio Channel

11 Comments / Article, Communications, Crew Resource Management, Decision Making, Equipment, Firefighter Situational Awareness, Human Behavior, Human Factors, Mayday and RIT, Safety, Situational awareness, Situational Readiness, Standard Operating Procedures/Guidelines, Stress, Teamwork, Training / Rich Gasaway

I recently was contacted by a fire officer asking whether their mayday procedure should include a provision for a dedicated mayday channel for the distressed crew to transmit their post-mayday traffic on. This is a question I’ve been asked often enough that I want to dedicate an article to the topic of mayday communications procedures.

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Giving L.I.P. to R.I.T.

4 Comments / Accountability, Close Call, Competency, Complacency, Crew Resource Management, Decision Making, Expectations, Human Factors, Incompetence, Line of Duty Death, Personal Protective Equipment, Safety / Rich Gasaway

I would like to share the results of a series of informal polls I have been conducting over a several year period. I conducted these surveys during my Firefighter Safety: Mistakes & Best Practices programs. Roughly 7,000 first responders have participated. There is nothing scientific about this survey or the results. It was merely

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Helmet Cams and Risky Behaviors

1 Comment / Article, Bravado, Decision Making, Firefighter Situational Awareness, Judgment, Risk, Safety, Simulation, Situational awareness / Rich Gasaway

I recently fielded a question from a Situational Awareness Matters member on the use of helmet cameras and the impact it might have on situational awareness. Here is the question: Would you please be so kind as to point me in the direction of literature, articles, websites or advice on the impact of personal cameras

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How We Decide … Anything

Leave a Comment / Article, Decision Making, Firefighter Situational Awareness, Human Behavior, Neuroscience, Safety, Situational awareness / Rich Gasaway

How you decide to do something is a complex process that involves multiple brain regions. Are decisions made with the rational brain or the intuitive brain? The answer, surprisingly, is both. Rational judgment allows you to process facts and data essential to good decision making. Intuition allows you to tap into past training and experiences

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Another False Alarm: A Tale of Complacency

5 Comments / Complacency, Crew Resource Management, Culture, Decision Making, Firefighter Situational Awareness, Human Behavior, Human Factors, Incompetence, Safety, SAMatters Radio, Situational awareness / Rich Gasaway

Complacency is a big deal for first responders because it impacts your situational awareness on multiple levels. I would like to give every responder the benefit of the doubt that if or when they have found him or herself being complacent that it wasn’t happening on purpose. In other words, I hope every responder desires

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Twelve Ways to Improve Situational Awareness (SAM 244)

Leave a Comment / Accountability, Attitude, Auditory exclusion, Close Call, Cognitive Memory, Command Support, Communications, Decision Making, Human Behavior, Hyper Vigilance, Information overload, Interruptions, Line of Duty Death, Long-Term Memory, Mindfulness, Miscommunications, Mission, Overload, Radios, Repetition, Risk, Risk Assessment, Safety, SAMatters Radio, Selective Listening, Short Term Memory, Size Up, Staffing, Stress, Task Fixation, Teamwork, Vigilance, Workload Management, Worksheets / Rich Gasaway

In this episode, a special guest presents twelve ways to improve situational awareness while working in high-risk, high consequence environments. Length: 25 minutes Click the YouTube icon to watch the full VIDEO __________________________________________________ If you are interested in taking your understanding of situational awareness and high-risk decision making to a higher level,

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Expectations can Impact Situational Awareness

2 Comments / Accountability, Article, Competency, Culture, Decision Making, Ego, Emotions, Fear, Firefighter Situational Awareness, Human Factors, Safety, Situational awareness, Stress / Rich Gasaway

Towering Inferno… Backdraft… Ladder 49… Emergency… Adam 12… Dragnet… Rescue Me… Chicago Fire… Hawaii Five O … Love them or hate them, movies and television influence perceptions and create expectations three ways: First, they influence citizen perceptions of emergency service providers and create certain performance expectations. Second, they influence first responders’ perceptions of themselves and

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