A control room metric for evaluating success and failure in high reliability crisis management

Abstract

The focus of this article is specific: we propose a metric for evaluating crises that start in or require the response of control rooms of major critical infrastructures. Rather than addressing the vexed issue of how to evaluate crisis management in terms of success or failure, we focus on a subset of crises that carry with them a standard for evaluating how they are managed. We begin with a central focus in research on high reliability management, namely, critical control room processes. The skills of control operators do not disappear when crises beset critical infrastructures they manage and we discuss the role of control operators in crisis management. A “crisis cycle” is described for control operators and we conclude with its use as a proposed standard for describing high reliability in crisis performance and for evaluating the degree of success or failure of such crisis management. This metric has implications for evaluating the role of crisis leadership and evaluating the role of Incident Command Systems in crisis management. We do not argue that our proposed approach to evaluating crisis management in terms of control room performance is appropriate for all types of crises, all types of crisis management, all types of high reliability organizations, or even all types of critical infrastructures.