Improving decision-making through crisis aniticpation

- How to communicate potential crises to decision-makers?

•

Lars Hedström, Executive Director

The Institute for National Defence and Security Policy Studies,

Swedish Defence University

Societal security an all-hazards approach

Strategic Crisis Management Leadership

• Preparing

• Sensemaking

• Decisionmaking

• Meaningmaking

• Ending and

Accounting

• Learning and

changing

A Leader’s Framework for Decision Making

“Cynefin”

Emergent practice

Good practice

Novel practice

Best practice

Harvard Business Review, David J. Snowden and Mary E. Boone

Sensemaking

• “Sense-making before and during crises takes place

within organizational, socio-technical and political

contexts which both enable and constrain the ability of

decision-makers to understand potential threats and

opportunities.”

• The agenda-politics perspective points to three main

sources to explain unaddressed vulnerabilities and

warning-response problems: overcrowded agendas,

the failure of key actors to place issues high enough

on the agenda to be acted on adequately, and

competing priorities.

Complexity – the challenge

“COMPLICATED” PROBLEMS

• Originate from isolated causes that are

clearly identifiable and fall within distinct

bureaucratic categories

• Can be dissected into isolated chunks

addressed, and pieced back together

• Consequences are generally

proportionate to their causes (for every

input, there is a proportionate output)

• Fixtures can be put in place for

permanent solutions.

“COMPLEX” or “WICKED” PROBLEMS

• Result from concurrent interactions among

multiple systems of events, and they erode the

customary boundaries that differentiate

bureaucratic concepts and missions

• Cannot be broken apart and solved piece-by-

piece. They must be understood and addressed

as a system

• Cannot be permanently solved. Instead, they

morph into new problems as the result of

interventions to deal with them.

”Anticipatory Governance, Practical Upgrades Equipping the Executive Branch to Cope

with Increasing Speed and Complexity of Major Challenges”, Leon S. Fuerth with Evan MH

Haber, Oct 2012

Foresight – a diciplined process

“Foresight is the disciplined analysis of

alternative futures. It is not prediction, it is

not vision, and it is not intelligence; it is a

distinct process of monitoring prospective

oncoming events”

“…analyzing potential implications, simulating

alternative courses of action, asking

unasked questions, and issuing timely

warning to avert a risk or seize an

opportunity.”

“A foresight-generating and horizon-scanning

system…. detect trends and weak signals,

visualize alternative futures…”

”Anticipatory Governance, Practical Upgrades Equipping the Executive

Branch to Cope with Increasing Speed and Complexity of Major Challenges”

Leon S. Fuerth with Evan MH Haber, Oct 2012

3D Early Warning and Opportunity Model

• Early Detection/Rapid Reporting

• Persistent Surveillance of Known Threats

• Strategic Reconnaissance of the Emerging

Environment

(Ken Knight)

“Actionable Knowledge and Strategic Decision Making for Bio- and Agroterrorism Threats: Building a

Collaborative Early Warning Culture”, Mårtensson, Hedström, Sundelius, Skiby, Elbers, and Knutsson,

Biosecurity and Bioterrorism: Biodefense Strategy, Practice, and Science Volume 11, Supplement 1, 2013 ª

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.DOI: 10.1089/bsp.2013.0039

Institutionalize

1. System for integrating foresight; anticipation of upcoming

challenges and opportunities; disciplined analysis of the long-

range consequences of today’s decisions

2. Networked system for orchestrating whole-of-government

management, including intensive coordination of our strategies

3. Feedback system to constantly measure consequence against

expectations

”Anticipatory Governance, Practical Upgrades Equipping the Executive

Branch to Cope with Increasing Speed and Complexity of Major Challenges”

Leon S. Fuerth with Evan MH Haber, Oct 2012

Crisis Management Coordination Secreteriat

• Identify and bench-mark crisis management capabilities,

and make sure that all ministries have a plan and capacity for

coping with crises within their area of responsibility,

• Monitor and surveillance 365/7/24,

• Provide early warning and assessments on potential risks

and threats that could affect Sweden, Swedish citizens and

Swedish interests,

• Plan and execute exercises and training activities, and

• Be the point of contact for cooperation with similar offices or

functions in other countries as well as within the joint EU

crisis management structures.

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-

csi/vol42no5/pdf/v42i5a04p.pdf

• The support was geared to respond quickly to whatever we felt the situation called for.

• The day-to-day personal contact enabled us, in ad hoc fashion, to tailor the support.

• Requirements were not filtered; they were received directly, continually, and from the top level