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