Mission Ops: Who is supposed to sign people in and track resources?

[Eclipse]

Sounds good on paper, but what about the pool?  (i.e. people checked in but unassigned)

Why are people checked in but unassigned? I thought we weren't supposed to self-dispatch. If resources are ordered, and people called upon, then they already know where they are assigned.

This is likely a problem you would run into at a SAREX, but should rarely pop up in a real mission.

There's lot of people who come to a mission and don't know what they will be doing, or are dual-tracked.
Until you're assigned to a GT, you're unassigned, and it's certainly not the GBD's problem to herd those cats,
same on the air side.  If you're on a crew, you're assigned, until then, you're pool.

[JeffDG]

^ That's the mess we're in today, but that's not really where we should be.

A random MSA might be able to click boxes or complete the sheets, but we need an actual experienced member who is directly responsible as a core function for the process.  Maybe it should be the Deputy FASC, etc.

Our last eval had some loose(r than I'd like) structure around this, and we got kudos for it because resource requests were handled with actual
attention.

Personally, I think the Finance/Admin Section (note, not the FASC personally) is responsible for signing resources into the mission, and gathering information regarding qualifications at that time (much simpler with IMU let me tell you).   The FASC may do this personally or may have "a random MSA" take care of this specific task.

Those resources are then available to the Planning Section's Resource Unit to be assigned, and thence to the Operations Section to carry out those assignments.  If the Resource Unit needs more resources, that becomes a function of the Logistics Unit to locate and requisition those resources, but once they arrive, they go through the F/A Section to sign in.

And we always have the whole mission base staff, fully spun up with well qualified people in all these roles on every mission, right???  Right?

[tsrup]

I understand the need to adjust duties in order to work with what we have, but there comes a time when we'll have to do it according to the NIMS standard because that's what the agency/agencies that we are working with will expect.

Check in with the resource unit (which may just consist of one lonely MSA).  That unit will report to the PSC, who will then assign the personnel based on their qualifications. 

if there is unassigned personnel, then they will wait in the staging area until given something to do.  Or if space were at a premium they would be told to go home and wait for a phone call (provided this its a real mission we're talking about).

[Al Sayre]

I think Safety needs to be in charge of signing in folks, since they have to verify that they are safety-current anyway...

[argentip]

This is likely a problem you would run into at a SAREX, but should rarely pop up in a real mission.

This past year at our SAREVAL, our sign-in was handled by a Resource Unit Leader.  They worked for Planning on paper, but parovided personnel numbers and ground and air asset information for both Logistics and FASC.  It worked really well and we received acknowledgment from the AF in their report for it.

As far as unassigned resources, if personnel are on a break and resting, then they could technically be classigied as unassigned.  This past spring, INWG helped with a large sand-bagging effort in the southern portion of the state.  The operation set up (I believe) 3 staging areas for incoming resources, to have a place for personnel to rest, and to organize "teams".  If the mission/disaster/etc is large enough, you will encounter unassigned personnel.

[argentip]

I think Safety needs to be in charge of signing in folks, since they have to verify that they are safety-current anyway...

Haha.  Using this logic, sign-in should be handled by a panel of members representing Safety (to check for safety currency), Operations (or Air and Ground to check indivual qualifications), and Chaplain (to make sure you are in emotionally able to participate - you could include a Medical representative to check their physical well-being as well). 

[Spaceman3750]

^ That's the mess we're in today, but that's not really where we should be.

A random MSA might be able to click boxes or complete the sheets, but we need an actual experienced member who is directly responsible as a core function for the process.  Maybe it should be the Deputy FASC, etc.

Our last eval had some loose(r than I'd like) structure around this, and we got kudos for it because resource requests were handled with actual
attention.

It worked well enough from my perspective. I requisitioned a van and a ground team and 5 minutes later I had 5 GTMs and van keys. Of course, I know that those were the last 5 GTMs to come easily for the rest of the weekend but I think that part worked very well.

[JeffDG]

I understand the need to adjust duties in order to work with what we have, but there comes a time when we'll have to do it according to the NIMS standard because that's what the agency/agencies that we are working with will expect.

Check in with the resource unit (which may just consist of one lonely MSA).  That unit will report to the PSC, who will then assign the personnel based on their qualifications. 

if there is unassigned personnel, then they will wait in the staging area until given something to do.  Or if space were at a premium they would be told to go home and wait for a phone call (provided this its a real mission we're talking about).

OK, but in addition to NIMS, we follow our AF regulations, and according to the AF, and how they evaluate our performance on SAREVALS, the FASC is responsible for ensuring that all resources are signed into the mission.

Sign in is, inherently, an administrative function.  It's people saying "Hey, I'm here, and this is what I can do."  That information needs to be passed to the RUL, but it's still administravia.

[lordmonar]

"regulations" break the whole idea of NIMS.

Rule one.....what works.....works.

It is important that people get signed in and credentials checked.....it is NOT important who does it.

[JeffDG]

"regulations" break the whole idea of NIMS.

Rule one.....what works.....works.

It is important that people get signed in and credentials checked.....it is NOT important who does it.

If it's important that it get done, then someone better [darn] well be responsible for doing it.

Regulations are not antithetical to NIMS.  NIMS recognizes that different organizations have their own rules and regulations.  It recognizes that fact and fully embraces that fact.  It's when Incident Commanders press participating organizations to break their own regulations that NIMS breaks down horribly.

[tsrup]

I understand the need to adjust duties in order to work with what we have, but there comes a time when we'll have to do it according to the NIMS standard because that's what the agency/agencies that we are working with will expect.

Check in with the resource unit (which may just consist of one lonely MSA).  That unit will report to the PSC, who will then assign the personnel based on their qualifications. 

if there is unassigned personnel, then they will wait in the staging area until given something to do.  Or if space were at a premium they would be told to go home and wait for a phone call (provided this its a real mission we're talking about).

OK, but in addition to NIMS, we follow our AF regulations, and according to the AF, and how they evaluate our performance on SAREVALS, the FASC is responsible for ensuring that all resources are signed into the mission.

And where its the regulation they says that the FASC must do it?  And anecdotal evidence suggests that the AF evaluators don't even care who does it.


Heck, in NIMS the FASC isn't even a required position.   So then what?

[Eclipse]

"regulations" break the whole idea of NIMS.

Rule one.....what works.....works.

It is important that people get signed in and credentials checked.....it is NOT important who does it.

If it's important that it get done, then someone better [darn] well be responsible for doing it.

Regulations are not antithetical to NIMS.  NIMS recognizes that different organizations have their own rules and regulations.  It recognizes that fact and fully embraces that fact.  It's when Incident Commanders press participating organizations to break their own regulations that NIMS breaks down horribly.

^ Exactly.

It's not important from a "Jim vs. John" standpoint, but it is crucial in a role and responsibility standpoint, because when things get hairy and people reach the end of their bandwidth, everyone drops to baseline and the ability to hand off responsibilities is key to maintaining your sanity.

Letting something as important as sign-ins be left to the whim of chance is poor management as a textbook example.  Why?  Because the
conversation is simple, and should be easily decided and never discussed again, ever, anywhere.  The vast majority of our missions and training, everywhere, work nearly the same, so things like mission sign-ins should not have to be re-thought every time.

I've said this before, one of our biggest issues is that every crew and team is "different" and feels they can open the "getting started" book
and change things around.  That's not how professional agencies do it - they decide and move on, whatever the decision is, because the
real work is saving life and property, not signing people in.

We've had more than one person mention RUL again.

What's an RUL in a CAP context?  We don't let people key a radio without specific training and certification yet we can allow a critical task like
this go to a made-up identifier?

Also, we can't play the NIMS card, because in most cases no other agency cares what we're doing.  In anything short of Fossett, we're
a contributing partner, not the lead and are only managing our people and resources.  We should know how NIMS works, but not scale a process that rarely interacts with anyone else.

[coudano]

The USAF isn't exactly the poster child for proper application of nims/ics either
--mmmmmaybe the base emergency management unit---
Most certainly /NOT/ the CAP-USAF guys doing our evals.

The Admin part of Finance/Admin doesn't mean "general administrativa"
there is general administrativa in every branch of the command structure

The Resource Unit of the Planning Section is the job description that you are thinking of when you say the word "admin" or even "personnel" in CAP language.

It's difficult to get outside the CAP box.


Another common fault of CAP is when it arrives as a resource to somebody else's incident,
and starts calling the person in charge (of CAP) an "incident commander"
Unless CAP is the lead agency, we come to the fight as a task force, and our "IC" is really a "task force commander"
Getting that one right, would have saved CAP some serious egg on the face in many instances,
at least three of which I have seen up front, in person.  But we still insist on "mission coordinator" equals "incident commander" and can't figure out how to simply swap titles depending on the situation...

In any incident there is only ONE incident commander.

[Spaceman3750]

Unless CAP is part of a unified command (e.g. Fossett) in which case we would have an IC.

Whatever happened to the Agency Liason qual? Basically it was the CAP IC for missions we weren't running (at least on paper). The qual was there when I let my membership go a few years ago then when I came back it was gone.

[JeffDG]

In any incident there is only ONE incident commander.

So, changes of command and Unified Commands don't exist?

[JeffDG]

Unless CAP is part of a unified command (e.g. Fossett) in which case we would have an IC.

Whatever happened to the Agency Liason qual? Basically it was the CAP IC for missions we weren't running (at least on paper). The qual was there when I let my membership go a few years ago then when I came back it was gone.

LO

[Spaceman3750]

Unless CAP is part of a unified command (e.g. Fossett) in which case we would have an IC.

Whatever happened to the Agency Liason qual? Basically it was the CAP IC for missions we weren't running (at least on paper). The qual was there when I let my membership go a few years ago then when I came back it was gone.

LO

Right, but the LO isn't a qualified IC like AL was.

[tsrup]

"regulations" break the whole idea of NIMS.

Rule one.....what works.....works.

It is important that people get signed in and credentials checked.....it is NOT important who does it.

If it's important that it get done, then someone better [darn] well be responsible for doing it.

Regulations are not antithetical to NIMS.  NIMS recognizes that different organizations have their own rules and regulations.  It recognizes that fact and fully embraces that fact.  It's when Incident Commanders press participating organizations to break their own regulations that NIMS breaks down horribly.

^ Exactly.

It's not important from a "Jim vs. John" standpoint, but it is crucial in a role and responsibility standpoint, because when things get hairy and people reach the end of their bandwidth, everyone drops to baseline and the ability to hand off responsibilities is key to maintaining your sanity.

Letting something as important as sign-ins be left to the whim of chance is poor management as a textbook example.  Why?  Because the
conversation is simple, and should be easily decided and never discussed again, ever, anywhere.  The vast majority of our missions and training, everywhere, work nearly the same, so things like mission sign-ins should not have to be re-thought every time.

I've said this before, one of our biggest issues is that every crew and team is "different" and feels they can open the "getting started" book
and change things around.  That's not how professional agencies do it - they decide and move on, whatever the decision is, because the
real work is saving life and property, not signing people in.

We've had more than one person mention RUL again.

What's an RUL in a CAP context?  We don't let people key a radio without specific training and certification yet we can allow a critical task like
this go to a made-up identifier?

Also, we can't play the NIMS card, because in most cases no other agency cares what we're doing.  In anything short of Fossett, we're
a contributing partner, not the lead and are only managing our people and resources.  We should know how NIMS works, but not scale a process that rarely interacts with anyone else.

An RUL in a cap context isnt necessary.  I doubt that a mission requiring one would ever soley be conducted by CAP.  It was merely a way of tracking the chain of responsibility to the PSC. For our context assinging a MSA to the PSC with the sole designated purpose of signing in people will maintain the propper chain of responsibility.  And the people who need the information will get it.

[sardak]

Here are my answers (and the book answers) as a real world (non-CAP) Planning Section Chief.

Which section is actually supposed to be in charge of the sign-in process? Planning

How about tracking people? Planning  and calling up more? Logistics

What about the pre-planning and call-up? Not part of the ICS.

How about resources, including airplanes and vehicles? Planning

Planning and Operations jointly determine the operational resource needs. The resource orders are produced by Plans and given to Logistics which finds/orders the operational resources. Logistics is responsible for determining and ordering support resources based on input from Plans and Ops.

If the incident gets large enough, a PSC is going to want a Resources Unit Leader (rw=RESL, CAP = RUL), as you've tried, to deal with all of this because resource tracking and status are just two of the many tasks within the Planning Section. Reporting  to the RESL is the Status/Check-in Recorder (SCKN), which would be a role for an MSA in CAP. CAP has thought about creating the Resources Unit Leader (RESL/RUL) position (and others) and lists it as a future qual in the current CAPR 60-3 (p. 27).

We've made up a position that echoes ICS called "RUL" for Resource Unit Leader, which then becomes a bottleneck, since with no SQTR or standardized expectations "some dude" generally winds up doing it.

There is a RESL checklist available from FEMA which is duplicated on the NESA ICSS page .
http://www.nesa.cap.gov/icsscurr.htm
http://www.training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/IS/ICSResource/PositionChecklists.htm

CAP takes ICS and absolutely mutilates it into its own image

which is why

According to CAP-USAFI 10-2701 (The AF SAREVAL Checklist)..., if you're doing your USAF SAREVAL, then it's the FASC's job.

And the evaluation team will tell you that it doesn't care how the real world works, the team just follows the checklist, right or wrong.

AL and LO have two completely different functions. There is an Agency Representative (AREP) position in the real world (there I go again) which is the person FROM an assisting or cooperating agency that reports TO the Liaison Officer at the ICP. An AREP has the authority to commit resources from his/her home agency. CAP has things all screwed up with its AL and LO quals, and tried to straighten things out by dropping the AL qual and requiring, per CAPR 60-3, the member functioning in that position to be an IC based what an AREP does.

Mike

[Eclipse]

How is this not boilerplate?   If the process of getting people working isn't straightforward, how can we expect anything else to be simple?