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 Technology & Development Center |
Two Entrapment Avoidance Projects: Studying Crew Cohesion as a Social Human Factor
Next year, we plan to conduct more interviews with leaders of fire crews. We need to collect many more stories about problems with crew cohesion that crewleaders experienced on fires. We want to hear from different crewleaders in different parts of the country about different kinds of cohesion problems and learn the different ways crewleaders solved those problems. Sometime within the next year we expect to reach a point of “story saturation,” a time when we no longer hear any new kinds of stories or any new types of work practices (Glaser and Strauss 1967). At that time, interviewing will stop.
During the next year, we will begin constructing an overall classification scheme of the types of crew cohesion problems on fires and the types of work practices crewleaders use to resolve these problems. After the classification scheme is completed, we will shift the focus of our work to developing a product or products that can be used to supplement the training of crewleaders.
Carrying out the development mission of MTDC, the last year of the project will focus on preparing tools for field use. In this case, the tools will be materials that can be used to supplement human factors training for wildland firefighters.
Possible Video Series to Supplement Training of Crewleaders
The original project proposal called for a single video that would help train crews to avoid becoming entrapped in wildfire. We found in the first project that the subject matter was far too complex to present in a single short video. Despite the narrower focus of the second project, we may have to produce, not one, but a series of videos (figure 6) to cover the complex subject matter. The primary audience for these new videos would be leaders of fire crews.
Figure 6—An example of a video
series produced by the
Missoula Technology and Development Center.
Publishing Stories: Guides not Rules
Another product may be a guidebook (figure 7) containing crewleaders’ stories. The guidebook would contain complete stories from crewleaders describing how they managed different kinds of crew cohesion problems on fires. The stories would preserve the real-world context within which crewleaders have to work. The guidebook would not be a collection of “rules” for crewleaders to follow.
Figure 7—An example of a guidebook
that incorporated work practices.
Crewleaders could use these stories to better understand the different kinds of problems they are likely to face with crew cohesion. The stories would be intended to increase crewleaders’ “stock of knowledge” (Schutz 1962). Knowledge gained from stories about types of crew cohesion problems and the types of work practices used by crewleaders to resolve them, connects directly to Klein’s “recognition-primed decision model” (Klein 2001). The new stock of knowledge will expand crewleaders’ awareness of common patterns of cohesion problems. Stories also will provide crewleaders a bank of common work practices they can use to manage different problems at different times on fires. The guidebook would not be prescriptive and would not be a substitute for thinking. Crewleaders still would have the responsibility to determine the kind of problems they face with crew cohesion and the appropriate work practices they should use to resolve those problems.
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