Analysis of Tool Usage and Requirements for Emergency Planners

1. An Analysis of Tool Usage and Requirements for a Team of Emergency Planners, Managers and Responders Tania Randall Defence R&D Canada – Atlantic October 2010

2. Maritime Command and Control (C2) Concept and Development (MC2CD) Group • Among many things, we: • study the command and control of operations centers • look for potential improvements • demonstrate or validate our ideas through experimentation • make recommendations based on results • Understanding the procedures and tools currently used by emergency teams can help us assess where changes may be of greatest value

3. My Interests & Beliefs • Software tools for emergency operations centers and emergency response • Ease of use of these tools • Identifying gaps between user requirements and current technologies or capabilities • I believe in: • Keeping it simple • Knowing the user • Not adding new tools when current ones are sufficient • Finding new ways to use existing tools better • Using simulation and/or experimentation to prove/disprove the benefits of new technology prior to real-world use

4. EXERCISE RISING WATERS 2010 How can we learn about the end user? • Observe them • Interview them • Become them • Take advantage of an existing exercise and survey participants!!!

5. The Rising Waters Exercise • Joint Task Force Atlantic (JTFA) tabletop exercise with NB EMO • Scenario involved military response to St John River flooding • Participants included: • All those involved in a flooding incident (senior leaders and managers, operations center staff, etc.) • Survey administered online, prior to exercise; a total of 20 survey responses came from: • JTFA, Land Forces Atlantic Area (LFAA), Formation Logistics (CFB Halifax) • NB EMO, Public Safety Canada (PS)

6. Survey Overview • Focused on three elements of emergency operations: • tools for communication, • required tasks, and • tools for information capturing. • Also asked for identification of specific product/tool names for cross-comparison across participants • For all rated questions, the following scale applied: • 1=very low, 2=low, 3=moderate, 4=high, and 5=very high

7. Survey – Communication Tools • Survey participants were asked to indicate (on a scale of 1 to 5) their likelihood of using the following tools for communication during an emergency: • Radio (VHF/TMR) • Phone (LAN/Mobile) • E-mail, fax, chat • a teleconference, a web conference • a shared workspace, a Virtual Social Networking (VSN) tool • an Incident Management System (IMS) • a Situational Awareness Tool

8. Communications Tools (Results & Observations)

9. Survey – Emergency-Related Tasks • Survey participants were asked to indicate (on a scale of 1 to 5) their likelihood of needing to do the following during an emergency: • send a file attachment • share textual information • record information (from their own organization or another organization) • repeat information to more than one person • provide information to non-responders • access information on a mobile device • keep an audit trail with all details of the incident response • look up a Standard Operating Procedure • monitor resources • perform an internet search

10. Emergency-Related Tasks (Results & Observations)

11. Survey - Logging • Survey participants were asked to indicate (on a scale of 1 to 5) their likelihood of using the following to keep track of incident details during an emergency response: • Microsoft Word/Excel/PowerPoint • an old-fashioned white board or flip chart, an electronic/shareable white board • a pen/pencil and paper • a paper map, a digital map • a wiki page • a mobile phone (to record notes or voice memos) • an Incident Management System

12. Logging (Results & Observations)

13. Participant Tool Comparison

14. For Further Discussion • Use of paper maps (~70%) and electronic maps (~80%) • Use of VSNs for Emergency Management (ranked lowest, <25%) • IMS functionality is very much required, however IMS system use is low for DND • Mobile phones (not surprisingly) ranked 3rd most likely to be used • Which applications are likely to be of greatest use to emergency responders?

15. Paper Maps vs Electronic Maps • Paper: • Pros: • Inexpensive, light, any size, easy to store, easy to become familiar with, require no power • Allow people to stand around a table, visualize what/where things are happening, and discuss issues  encourages collaboration • Cons: Fixed amount of detail, requires light • Electronic maps: • Pros: Digital overlays available, easy to obtain, can mark on them without permanently defacing the original map, can be shared electronically • Cons: Show less of an area at once, require some technical intuition, not as portable, can be expensive, are best-suited for one or a limited number of viewers at a time

16. DRDC/Univ. of Waterloo Project: Tabletop Computing • While this technology is still much in its infancy, it could have future impact on the design of operations rooms.

17. Virtual Social Networking • As of Sept 2010, there were 17 million Facebook users in Canada • Facebook has huge potential for communicating with the public • Facebook gives the public an opportunity to document what they know and to talk to others about it • As of June 2010, Twitter had 190M users worldwide, tweeting 65M times a day • For emergency planning stages, Facebook or similar tools could be used by managers and responders to familiarize themselves with each other, share ideas, etc.

18. DRDC Project: VSN for Military Interoperability • Investigating ways the Canadian Forces can use virtual social networking (VSN): • Share experiences, build relationships • Locate and share expertise • Inherit social network connections from your predecessor, to ease transition to a new job • 3-year project (ending in 2012) will: • identify requirements for a CF VSN tool, • develop a prototype or purchase a solution, • run experiments to measure potential effects of VSN, and • trial system in a ‘pilot’ community.

19. IMS Capabilities vs IMS Systems • Why IMS systems are not in greater use: • lack of awareness • confusion over which one is best/appropriate • no system appears to fit our ‘mental model’ • concerns about interoperability • concerns about training requirements and ease of use • cost, procurement processes/efforts • belief that “we can already do all those things” • Benefits of IMS system vs existing collection of tools: • keeps all the information and logs in one place • multiple users can modify/enhance the same incident • web-based so it’s easy to access (no installation) • easy report generation, including ICS forms • …

20. DRDC Project: IMS System Usability • Reviewed ~10 IMS Systems, 4 in great detail • Identified 4 core tasks common to each IMS system • Wrote experimental plan to study the usability of each of these systems • Have room set up and ready to go • Will run 24 people through 4 systems • Survey after each task, and end of each system • Time to complete task, and clicks to complete task • Screen capture of each system for further analysis • Returning product-specific results to the companies

21. The Wonders of a Handheld Mobile Device • Surveyed participants indicated a very high likelihood of using a mobile phone/device during an emergency • Available applications are practically endless, and if you can’t find what you need, you can just have someone develop it! • Here are few applications/capabilities you might not know about: • Push-to-talk applications • Tether cell phone internet to a laptop • GPS ‘Friend’ tracking apps • Route logging apps with photos • Augmented reality apps • Streaming video from phone

22. Final Thoughts • Survey suggests, during emergencies we: • communicate with e-mail, phones, mobile devices • are very likely to perform tasks handled by IMS systems, yet use of such systems is not that high (overall) • are more likely to use Office tools than specific emergency management tools (DND) • The future may find: • a greater focus on digital maps • increased use of easy to use Incident Management Systems • increased use of virtual social networks • increased use of mobile technologies and applications