Set Up to Fail: How the Incident Command System is Inadequate for Modern Day Complex Incident Management

For decades, emergency response supervisors and leaders have been taught that effective implementation of the Incident Command System (ICS) will result in successful incident management. This has been further propagated by the mandatory nationwide adoption of the National Incident Management System (NIMS). However, both systems are simple hierarchies, rigid, focus on top-down system control, are resource-intensive, and require an ordered system to function. Emergency incidents aren't compatible with this system because of the inherent complexity and chaos associated with such events. By trying to apply this tool in incompatible scenarios, incident commanders often find themselves treating establishment of ICS as the objective, rather than a tool at their disposal, usually at the cost of overall strategic management and leadership. This presentation will show how traditional ICS/NIMS is counterproductive in the chaotic early phases of a large-scale emergency. Using complexity science, the presenter will explain the concepts of numerosity, disorder and diversity, feedback loops, and non-equilibrium, all prevailing conditions in emergency incidents. The presenter will explain self-organizing emergence and mumuration that is typical of disaster and emergency sociology, and how those can be leveraged and influenced, rather than futilely opposed, to effectively manage an incident.