NIMS requirements

[floridacyclist]

A common problem I see in everything from squadrons to incidents to planned events is "delegaphobia"...fear of delegation. ICs, section chiefs, branch directors all want to do everything themselves and are very loathe to delegate duties...even when doing so will make them much more effective in their jobs.

When assigning comm, having the leader of an element handle his/her own communications can easily increase their span-of-control well past what is manageable, especially on a complex incident. By assigning RTOs, it cuts down on the number of people that leaders have to deal with as all messages come through that one comm operator....who with all the cross-linking and relaying going on really needs to understand the nuts and bolts of ICS to know where all the links fit in the chain.

No, you will not find a lot of this in any CAP manuals or even in the ICS training itself...but as an ARRL Level 3 Emergency Communications Instructor who has responded on every major storm to hit FL since early 2004 as well as tons of exercise both with CAP and ARES, I have a vague clue as to how to effectively use radio communications in an emergency.

Nearly every disaster response AAR pinpoints effective communications (or lack of same) as a major achilles heel of the operation. Often, those problems can be traced to having untrained people trying to figure out how to run an effective comm network instead of concentrating on their real jobs and delegating comm to someone with training and a specific assignment to handle same....which is why you don't see police and fire chiefs dispatching.

[Dustoff]

A common problem I see in everything from squadrons to incidents to planned events is "delegaphobia"...fear of delegation. ICs, section chiefs, branch directors all want to do everything themselves and are very loathe to delegate duties...even when doing so will make them much more effective in their jobs.

A point I try to emphasize in the Intermediate and Advanced ICS courses.  It's a challenge since they don't usually do that on a day-to-day basis.

If we don't train'em to delegate, they won't do it when they're up to their neck in alligators! 

Develop the thought pattern/habit.

Train like you fight, fight like you train.  ( I think that's my mantra..... )

Jim

[SoCalCAPOfficer]

I still find it hard to understand why there is no place in our computer system to put the ICS Courses we have completed.  I have completed 100, 200, 700 and 800 and there is no place to put these certificates except in my 201 file.

[floridacyclist]

Simple answer: CAP ain't NIMS-compliant yet. Give it time and you'll see signoff boxes popping up on SQTRs, In the meantime, file those puppies and save them for when they really do count for something more than the knowledge learned.

Speaking of knowledge, remember this is more than just a signoff. Those who pencil-whip these tests online are just wasting their time. The piece of paper is pretty worthless if you don't understand the concepts being taught and train with them in your exercises and minor missions. I have seen tons of folks show up at an ICS300 class barely able to spell ICS (I have actually seen that misspelled...multiple times...all the time referred to as the ISC courses etc so you know they're clueless) because they used the find feature in Acrobat to pass the test and didn't learn a single cotton-pickin thang...or else, they figured it out enough to pals it, but continue to ignore the concepts on exercises and other missions.

The real value can be seen when we're on a multi-agency multi-jurisdictional mission  (like the Fossett search or some of our hurricanes) and we're all...cops, CAP, FFs, FEMA etc singing from the same sheet of music and working together.

[sardak]

The real value can be seen when we're on a multi-agency multi-jurisdictional mission  like the Fossett search...

It would be interesting to know how it was managed.  Area (unified) command? MACS? Neither? (my bet).

As for delegation, it is said that on a well managed large incident, the IC is the person walking around with their hands in their pocket, or one hand in their pocket and the other holding a cup of coffee.

I/IS-100 is a necessary class and should be given to everyone in a classroom as part of their GES training, not online.  Unfortunately, DHS has taken a course that was originally intended to be self-study, but was generally taught as a 1 to 2 hour class, and turned it into over 200 PowerPoint slides and a recommended agenda of 9 hours of classroom training. No wonder most everyone takes it online.  However, the necessary concepts can be properly taught in 2 hours.  I also think I/IS-200 should be taught in a classroom, over two days. 

As others have said, there is a growing number of "ICS trained" people who took 100 and 200 online and still don't have a clue what ICS is about.

Mike

[floridacyclist]

MBWA..Management By Wandering Around..have never heard that phrase taught in CAP but it makes perfect sense. I think I picked it up in my NASAR Search Theory book.