Abstract
Operational commanders have to collaborate across emergency units and make several time-critical decisions in order to quickly and effectively handle emergency incidents. The purpose of this study was to empirically test whether a domain-specific joint checklist and a theoretical team decision-making model were able to account for reflections shared by operational commanders regarding decision-making in Incident Command Post (ICP). Based on a mixed models design, semi-structured interviews were first conducted with 17 operational commanders from the three emergency units in Oslo and the surrounding districts in south-east Norway. The interviews were then unitized into 1626 statements and coded into categories in the FORSTÅTT checklist (Vigerust, Andersen & Vollebæk, 2009) and the Intuitive team Decision Making (ITD) model (Kline, 2005). The results indicate that neither of these two models could account completely for reflections shared by operational commanders on decision-making in ICP. The two models combined could account for 86.6% of all the statements. A thematic analysis of the statements not captured by either models uncovered six themes relevant to decision-making. An alternative model combining the two models and the residual themes was suggested. This study contributes to an increased understanding of which elements affect the decision-making process in ICP, and has both theoretical and practical implications.
Operational commanders have to collaborate across emergency units and make several time-critical decisions in order to quickly and effectively handle emergency incidents. The purpose of this study was to empirically test whether a domain-specific joint checklist and a theoretical team decision-making model were able to account for reflections shared by operational commanders regarding decision-making in Incident Command Post (ICP). Based on a mixed models design, semi-structured interviews were first conducted with 17 operational commanders from the three emergency units in Oslo and the surrounding districts in south-east Norway. The interviews were then unitized into 1626 statements and coded into categories in the FORSTÅTT checklist (Vigerust, Andersen & Vollebæk, 2009) and the Intuitive team Decision Making (ITD) model (Kline, 2005). The results indicate that neither of these two models could account completely for reflections shared by operational commanders on decision-making in ICP. The two models combined could account for 86.6% of all the statements. A thematic analysis of the statements not captured by either models uncovered six themes relevant to decision-making. An alternative model combining the two models and the residual themes was suggested. This study contributes to an increased understanding of which elements affect the decision-making process in ICP, and has both theoretical and practical implications.