Your COP? - I see it differently. - Sharing experience of working with practitioners on COP.
Abstract as pdf
Corresponding Author:
Luc ROMBOUT
Antwerp University - Faculty of Sociology Belgium
luc.rombout@uantwerpen.be
Author(s):
Moving from the theoretical concept of COP to the domain of practitioners and the relevance of ‘the’ COP versus one of multiple COP’s are vital components of a discussion where the technical feasibility and implementation are of secondary importance.
Our contribution consists in sharing some experiences from preparedness projects, exercises, the realisation of a national C2 (Command & Control) system and real crisis situations in various countries and cultures, emergency services and levels.
Whereas Common Information is crucial in concerted or even joint decision making, an important observation in our work is that culture, training, organisational background, personal experience, psychological characteristics, type of crisis and focus of decision making hinder the generation of just one COP that would provide equal insights to all involved decision makers and emergency responders.
The question is then, do we harmonise the human actor or do we customise the COP and if the latter path is envisioned, do we have the knowledge and technology to do so.
The panel contribution would consist of an overview of observations and assessments confirming or challenging some of the aspects of the COP literature, ranging from object visualisation to data sets required for decision making at the operational, tactical and strategic level.
A fairly unique component of that will be the observations from the ICMS project, where over a period of more than a year, workshops were organised with stakeholders from all relevant emergency responding actors in Belgium as a phase in the creation of a national civilian C2 system.
This contribution is also related to the presenter’s doctoral research where the interaction between person, team, information, process and environment as complementary components of emergency management are addressed.
Exploring Future Work Practices for Information Sharing and Achieving Common Situational Understanding in Disasters