Create a power point presentation communicating their key points

 

Read Harrald, “Agility and Discipline: Critical Success Factors for Disaster Response” and Fischer, “The Deconstruction of the Command & Control Model: A Post-Modern Analysis.”  The best way to master the literature is to be able to communicate it to wide audiences. The Assignment requires you to: •Review the reading •Comprehend its messages •Create a PowerPoint presentation communicating their key points.

 

10.1177/0002716205285404 604MarchTHE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMYAGILITY AND DISCIPLINE

For more than thirty years, the U.S. emergency manage-
ment community has been increasing its ability to struc-
ture, control, and manage a large response. The result of
this evolution is a National Response System based on
the National Response Plan and the National Incident
Management System that is perceived to have failed in
the response to Hurricane Katrina. Over the same
period, social scientists and other disaster researchers
have been documenting and describing the nonstruc-
tural factors such as improvisation, adaptability, and cre-
ativity that are critical to coordination, collaboration,
and communication and to successful problem solving.
This article argues that these two streams of thought are
not in opposition, but form orthogonal dimensions of
discipline and agility that must both be achieved. The
critical success factors that must be met to prepare for
and respond to an extreme event are described, and an
organizational typology is developed.

Keywords: response; critical success factors; agility;
improvisation; discipline

Extreme events such as the September 11,2001, attacks on the United States, the De-
cember 2004 Sumatra earthquake and Indian
Ocean Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, and the
October 2005 Pakistan earthquake produce cat-
astrophic immediate impacts and cause long-
term disruption of economic and social systems.
With the exception of the 9/11 attacks, these

256 ANNALS, AAPSS, 604, March 2006

DOI: 10.1177/0002716205285404

Agility and
Discipline:

Critical Success
Factors for

Disaster
Response

By
JOHN R. HARRALD

John R. Harrald is the director of the George Washing-
ton University (GWU) Institute for Crisis, Disaster, and
Risk Management and a professor of engineering man-
agement in the GWU School of Engineering and Ap-
plied Science. He is the executive editor of the Journal of
Homeland Security and Emergency Management. He
has been actively engaged in the fields of emergency and
crisis management and maritime safety and port secu-
rity and as a researcher in his academic career and as a
practitioner during his twenty-two-year career as a

U.S.

Coast Guard officer, retiring in the grade of captain. He
received his B.S. in engineering from the U.S. Coast
Guard Academy, an M.S. from the Massachusetts Insti-
tute of Technology where he was an Alfred P. Sloan Fel-
low, and an MBA and Ph.D. from Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute.

events exceeded our ability to organize and execute coordinated, effective
response and relief efforts. The national response system crafted over the past
three years by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was tested for
the first time when Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast. Hurricane Katrina
was a catastrophic event because it was actually two disasters. Comfort (2005, 5)
noted that “the first phase, the hurricane, could legitimately be called a natural
disaster, as it was generated by meteorological activity beyond human control. The
second phase, the breach of the levees and ensuing flood, can only be acknowl-
edged as a man made disaster, after years of neglected maintenance of the levee
system, inadequate public education regarding the risk and severity of hurricanes
in the region, and inadequate planning and preparedness training across jurisdic-
tional levels . . . city, parish state, and federal.” The second phase destroyed the
capability of state and local government and overwhelmed the federal response.

The perceived failure of the response system shocked the nation. As we face the
reality that we are vulnerable to threats of terrorist attacks and to natural hazards
that can surpass the impact of these historic events, it is appropriate to ask how we
organizationally prepare for, respond to, and recover from extreme events in ways
that minimize the disruption to and maximize the resiliency of our social and
economic systems.

This article reviews the nature of the challenge presented by extreme events;
describes the recent U.S. experience in developing plans and procedures for man-
aging these events; offers a critical success factor approach to preparing for, re-
sponding to, and recovering from events with potential catastrophic impacts; and
offers an organizational typology based on the orthogonal dimensions of discipline
and agility.

Three themes from the organizational and emergency management literature
describe the essential elements of organizing for and coordinating the massive
effort required to respond to an extreme event. These themes are as follows:

• There is a trade-off between command and control requirements necessary for mobiliz-
ing and managing a large organization and the need to ensure broad coordination and
communication.

• Extreme events present unforeseen conditions and problems, requiring a need for adapta-
tion, creativity, and improvisation while demanding efficient and rapid delivery of services
under extreme conditions.

• Diverse organizations must achieve technical and organizational interoperability requir-
ing common structure and process while absorbing and interacting with thousands of
spontaneous volunteers and emergent organizations.

The answer proposed in this article is that these are all needed and that the
implied trade-offs are false choices. This article argues that designers of organiza-
tional systems for emergency response, like designers of software systems, must
ensure both discipline (structure, doctrine, and process) and agility (creativity, im-
provisation, and adaptability).

AGILITY AND DISCIPLINE 257

Extreme Events

The context of the arguments in this article is the context of extreme events that
require a coordinated federal response to avoid catastrophic failures resulting from
the overwhelming of state and local resources. As stated by Roberts (2005, 4), this
is one of the primary reasons that a federal government exists.

The national television reportage
largely defined the New Orleans catastrophe,

particularly since there was no
significant federal or state presence

in the city for days after the flooding.

The Catastrophic Annex to the National Response Plan (NRP; DHS 2004b)
describes the attributes of an extreme event from the perspective of its demands on
emergency management. These attributes remarkably described the actual im-
pacts experienced in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina:

• “The response capabilities and resources of the local jurisdiction (to include mutual aid
from surrounding jurisdictions and response support from the State) may be insufficient
and quickly overwhelmed. Local emergency personnel who normally respond to incidents
may be among those affected and unable to perform their duties.” The New Orleans lead-
ers, emergency managers, and first responders were all victims. The police and firefighters
that responded were themselves homeless and were not reinforced by state and federal
resources for days.

• “A catastrophic incident may cause significant disruption of the area’s critical infrastruc-
ture, such as energy, transportation, telecommunications, and public health and medical
systems.” The total loss of infrastructure in New Orleans is one of the main discriminators
between this event and prior near-catastrophic events in U.S. history such as Hurricane
Andrew and the Northridge earthquake. Post-9/11 infrastructure protection investments
have focused on increasing the security of infrastructure, not in increasing its resilience.

• “A detailed and credible common operating picture may not be achievable for 24 to 48
hours (or longer). As a result, response activities must begin without the benefit of a de-
tailed or complete situation and critical needs assessment.” The failure to obtain situational
awareness during Katrina is well documented, as is the failure to act creatively and quickly
based on incomplete information. The total breakdown of emergency communications
was a key part of this failure.

• “Federal support must be provided in a timely manner to save lives, prevent human suffer-
ing, and mitigate severe damage. This may require mobilizing and deploying assets before
they are requested via normal NRP protocols.” FEMA coordinated a massive mobilization

258 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

effort. The need to deploy assets, other than search and rescue, outside of normal protocols
apparently was not recognized.

• “Large numbers of people may be left temporarily or permanently homeless and may re-
quire prolonged temporary housing.” The peak shelter population was more than 250,000
people; today more than 125,000 evacuees are in temporary shelter, and many of them will
require extended housing assistance. We are only now developing a long-term housing and
recovery strategy.

• “A catastrophic incident may produce environmental impacts . . . that severely challenge
the ability and capacity of governments and communities to achieve a timely recovery.”
Much of southern Louisiana, including New Orleans and Lake Pontchartrain, is an envi-
ronmental disaster area, including oil spills approaching the volume of the Exxon Valdez
spill, and the federal involvement in the environmental cleanup will last years.

• “A catastrophic incident has unique dimensions/characteristics requiring that response
plans/strategies be flexible enough to effectively address emerging needs and require-
ments.” The DHS has spent years developing a common, national approach to incident
management through the creation of the NRP, the National Incident Management System
(NIMS; DHS 2004a), and the National Preparedness Goals. This emphasis on structure
and process may have diminished our ability to react creatively and adaptively.

• “A catastrophic incident results in large number of casualties and/or displaced persons,
possibly in the tens of thousands.” Although the number of deaths due to the flooding of
New Orleans were less than initial estimates, the Katrina death toll was approximately thir-
teen hundred and was the largest experienced from a natural disaster since the Galveston
Hurricane of 1900. Three months after the storm, there is still no plan of how to deal with
the dispersion of hundreds of thousands of residents from New Orleans and Southern
Louisiana.

• “A catastrophic incident may occur with little or no warning. Some incidents, such as rapid
disease outbreaks, may be well underway before detection.” The National Hurricane Cen-
ter provided ample warning for Hurricane Katrina, allowing for evacuations and other
preparations. The second disaster, the failure of the New Orleans levees and the inunda-
tion of 80 percent of the city, although predicted by many experts, occurred with little or no
warning and surprised residents, government leaders, and responders alike. Due to com-
plete communication failures, the failures of the levees was not known to emergency man-
agers until hours after they occurred.

• “Large scale evacuations, organized or self directed, may occur. The health-related impli-
cations of an incident aggravate attempts to implement a coordinated evacuation manage-
ment strategy.” The first evacuation of New Orleans was the large-scale evacuation and
dispersal of approximately 80 percent of the city’s population prior to the storm. This evac-
uation was conducted primarily by automobile and was relatively successful from the
perspective of numbers evacuated, but it left the poor, the sick, and the disabled in the city
to fend for themselves. The second evacuation was the ad hoc evacuation of the flooding
victims; the lack of coordinated strategy and tactics and the severe health and safety
impacts were widely reported.

Henry Quarantelli (2005) described the attributes of a catastrophic event that
impact the social structure of the community:

• “Most or all of the community-built environment is heavily impacted.” Quarantelli pointed
out that Hurricane Katrina flooded 80 percent of New Orleans.

• “Local officials are unable to undertake their usual work role, and this often extends into
the recovery period. Many leadership roles may have to be taken by outsiders to the com-
munity.” Police and fire personnel were victims of Katrina, and vehicles and operations
centers were destroyed. The mayor of New Orleans was forced to establish city offices in
Baton Rouge.

AGILITY AND DISCIPLINE 259

• “Help from nearby communities cannot be provided.” In Katrina, all surrounding commu-
nities were, themselves, devastated.

• “Most, if not all, of the everyday community functions are sharply and concurrently inter-
rupted.” The result is the emergence of decentralized decision making, and the idea that
there could be any centralized control imposed on these disparate decisions and varying
community activities flies in the face of what researchers have found in crises.

• “The mass media system constructs catastrophes even more than they do disasters.” There
is also “far less of the normal filtering and screening of stories especially in the electronic
media.” The national television reportage largely defined the New Orleans catastrophe,
particularly since there was no significant federal or state presence in the city for days after
the flooding.

• “The political arena becomes even more important. National government and very top offi-
cials become involved.” Within days, the perceived failure of the federal response had
become a major political issue, resulting in the personal involvement of President Bush
and the eventual replacement of FEMA Director Michael Brown.

Responding to Extreme Events

In spite of all efforts to reduce threats and hazards, and to minimize our vulnera-
bility to extreme events, these events will occur. When such an event does occur,
the response and recovery effort requires an extensive commitment of funds and
organizational resources. For an event such as Katrina, the response and recovery
effort eventually requires the contributions of hundreds of organizations and hun-
dreds of thousands of people. Figure 1 shows that compared to the preevent
investment in resources devoted to managing risk and preparing for response, the
postevent organizations are large and complex. Figure 1 also shows that the re-
sponse phase can be subdivided into four subphases reflecting the evolution of
objectives and functions over time. The initial response is conducted by resources
on the ground reacting to the situation created by the event, while external
resources are mobilized. An integration phase is required to structure these re-
sources into a functioning organization capable of identifying needs and providing
services that are beyond the capability and capacity of the early responders. If the
mobilization and integration are successful, a production phase is reached where
the response organization is fully productive, delivering needed services as a mat-
ter of routine. These three phases are analogous to the processes of “storming,”
“forming,” “norming,” and “performing” that are experienced by any stranger
group tasked to solve unanticipated problems (Tuckman 1965). Finally, the large
external presence is diminished during a demobilization and transition to recovery
stage. In an extreme event, a significantly large external recovery force is required
for an extended period of time. The planning for and transition to this force must
be managed. The success factors in each stage are linked; success in one phase is a
precondition for success in the next.

The critical success factor approach, developed by MIT’s Jack Rockhart (Rockhart
and Bullen 1981; Rockhart 1979, 1981; Carali et al. 2004), can be used to describe
the essential factors that must occur in each of these phases. Critical success factors
are those few key areas of activity in which favorable results are absolutely neces-

260 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

sary, things that must go right if the enterprise or operation is to succeed. Research-
ers have developed a framework describing the critical success factors for the suc-
cessful response to and recovery from an extreme event. This framework is based
on observation and study of the responses to a series of extreme events and the con-
duct of drills and exercises with U.S. and international response and relief organi-
zations (Harrald and Mazzuchi 1993; Carley and Harrald 1997; Harrald and
Stoddart 1998). These linked critical success factors illustrate how emergency
management preparations, plans, structure, and organization enable a rapid transi-
tion from the initial chaotic response and mobilization to the effective delivery of
services during the production stage and during later recovery activities. Many of
these critical success factors can only be achieved if the evolving emergency man-
agement structure is an open organization, aware of and adjusting to the rapidly
changing external environment, showing the importance of improvisation, adapt-
ability, and creativity to the management of this transition from chaos to stability.
Most important, these factors capture the essential need to anticipate future prob-
lems, creating the potential for their solution before they occur, avoiding the reac-
tive, bureaucratic response we saw during Hurricane Katrina.

Critical success factors: Preparedness and Prevention

• Domain awareness and detection capability are created and maintained
• Mobilization and response plans are based on realistic scenarios

AGILITY AND DISCIPLINE 261

Reaction &
Mobilization

Organizational
Integration

Production
Transition/
Demobilization

“�Storming /
Forming”

“Norming”

“Performing”

“Transition”

Time
(Post-Event)

Pre-Event Crisis
Event

PreparationPreparation
andand
PreventionPrevention O

rg
a
n

iz
a
ti

o
n

a
l
S

iz
e

FIGURE 1
STAGES OF A DISASTER RESPONSE: ORGANIZATIONAL SIZE VERSUS TIME

• Mobilization capacity and capability is adequate to meet expected needs
• Adequate resources are available for initial response in high threat areas
• Interorganizational coordination is preplanned; stakeholders are identified

Critical success factors: Initial Reaction and Mobilization

• Situational awareness is obtained and shared across distributed organizational network
• Resources in place are capable of initial life and safety response
• Resource mobilization is based on accurate estimate of need for people, funds, and

equipment
• Resource mobilization is governed by preplanned organizational structure and process

Critical success factors: Organizational Integration Phase

• Mobilized response resources are rapidly and efficiently integrated into predetermined
response organization

• Coordinated multiorganization, networked response system is established
• Ability to manage the collection, synthesis, analysis, and internal and external distribution

of information is established
• Organizational and operational adaptability and agility is maintained

Critical success factors: Production Phase

• Organizational productivity and resources are sustained and supported
• Requirement and productivity metrics are developed and monitored
• Accountability is established
• Requirements for recovery are identified

Critical success factors: Transition/Demobilization Phase

• Continuing needs are identified
• Plan for transition to local support of continuing needs is developed and followed
• External resources are demobilized according to established plans and procedures
• Resources are provided to support economic and social recovery
• Organizational learning is accomplished

Agility and

Discipline

Barry Boehm and Richard Turner in their recent book Balancing Agility and
Discipline: A Guide for the Perplexed (2004) described how large software engi-
neering project teams must be both agile and disciplined to build large systems.
Webster’s defines discipline as “self-control or orderly conduct, acceptance of or
submission to authority and control” and agility as “able to move quickly and easily,
deft and active” (Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary 1993). Boehm and
Turner (2004, 1) stated that “discipline is the foundation for any successful
endeavor. Discipline creates well organized memories, history, and experience”
and that “agility is the counterpart of discipline. Where discipline ingrains and

262 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

strengthens, agility releases and invents . . . agility applies memory and history to
adjust to new environments to react and adapt, to take advantage of unexpected
opportunities.”

[T]he case for adaptability, creativity, and
improvisation during response to complex
events has been made largely outside the

emergency management community by the
social science research community.

As captured in the critical success factors outlined above, response organiza-
tions must possess agility and discipline to respond to extreme events. It is interest-
ing to note that the advancements in discipline (structure, organization, and proce-
dures) have originated from within the emergency management profession. The
Incident Command System (ICS) evolved within the wildfire community. During
the 1970s, the U.S. Forest Service and the state of California developed the proto-
type ICS system FIRESCOPE (FIrefighting RESources of California Organized
for Potential Emergencies). In 1982, FIRESCOPE evolved into the National
Interagency Incident Management System (NIIS) for fighting wildfires (NIMS
Integration Center 2004). ICS rapidly became a standard protocol for fire services
and was adopted by the U.S. Coast Guard as a method for organizing for oil spill
response after the Exxon Valdez spill.

Concerns that ICS was a relatively closed system that would not foster adapt-
ability and creativity were expressed by Cohn, Wallace, and Harrald (1991).
Mendonça (2005) noted that ICS is more than organizational structure; it is a deci-
sion-making protocol for emergency response organizations that places a coordi-
nator in the central role of facilitating team decision making. Walker et al. (1994,
42) stated that “the traditional NIIMS was designed as a closed, command and con-
trol system” and that it historically operated effectively in emergency situations
where like organizations (e.g., firefighters) with uniform goals and relatively homo-
geneous organizational cultures were integrated into a single organization.

The advantages of ICS in creating the necessary discipline for multiagency
response led to its becoming the de facto standard for firefighting and emergency
management. The ICS forms the basis for the NIMS adopted in 2004 (see discus-
sion below) and provides the following elements of discipline to incident manage-
ment (www.nimsonline.org):

AGILITY AND DISCIPLINE 263

Common Terminology
Modular Organization
Management by Objectives
Reliance on an Incident Action Plan
Manageable Span of Control
Pre-designated Incident Mobilization Center Locations & Facilities
Comprehensive Resource Management
Integrated Communications
Establishment and Transfer of Command
Chain of Command and Unity of Command
Unified Command
Accountability of Resources and Personnel
Deployment
Information and Intelligence Management

It is interesting to note that the case for adaptability, creativity, and improvisa-
tion during response to complex events has been made largely outside the emer-
gency management community by the social science research community. Dynes
and Quarantelli (1968, 1976) identified the phenomena of emergence during the
aftermath of a disaster as new groups formed to address unresolved problems. The
postdisaster self-organization of impacted populations and the emergence of cre-
ative individual and group behavior has been repeatedly observed and confirmed
by social science researchers.

Dynes (1994, 2000) demonstrated that the assumptions inherent in closed-
system, command and control organizational models have been absent in the after-
math of almost all natural and technological disasters. The closed system model
(which Dynes termed the “military model”) assumes environmental chaos and the
need for command, control, and centralized decision making. The open-system,
problem-solving model assumes an environment that supports continuity and
recovery and a need for coordination, cooperation, and decentralized decision
making.

Other researchers have noted that structured planning and organization were
only effective if the ability to improvise is preserved. Kreps (1991, 33) in a publica-
tion intended for local emergency managers, stated, “Without improvisation,
emergency management loses flexibility in the face of changing conditions. With-
out preparedness, emergency management loses clarity and efficiency in meeting
external disaster related demands. Equally importantly improvisation and pre-
paredness go hand in hand.” Kendra and Wachtendorf (2002) saw improvisation as
the combination of planning and creativity when meeting unexpected situations or
unexpected constraints. Mendonça and Wallace (2004, 8) noted that while emer-
gency preparedness and planning is structured, emergency managers must impro-
vise and that “extreme events may perturb pre-disaster social networks leading to
their extension, dissolution, reconfiguration, or construction. The connections
among individuals that are implied by disaster plans or other data sources may then

264 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

be compared to those that actually occur during the response to an actual or simu-
lated event.”

Walker et al. (1994, 43) described the necessity for open organizational response
management systems that “rely on internal and external feedback, organizational
learning from the reactions of the external environments to its decisions, distrib-
uted decision making by small ad hoc teams, and a high degree of flexibility and
innovation.” Comfort (1999) in her examination of responses to major earthquakes
has identified the ability of response organizations to build adaptive organizational
networks as a key predictor of success.

Karl Weick (1998; Weick and Sutcliffe 2001) has focused the need for high-
reliability organizations to anticipate and manage the unexpected. He used the
term “mindfulness” to describe the ability of organizations to organize themselves
and to create an organizational culture that enables them to detect and react to the
unexpected (Weick and Sutcliffe 2001, 3). He asserted that “a well developed capa-
bility for mindfulness catches the unexpected earlier, when it is smaller, compre-
hends its potential importance despite the small size of the disruption and re-
moves, contains or rebounds from the effects of the unexpected” (Weick and
Sutcliffe 2001, 17). A primary objective of training and preparedness is to facilitate
the ability to detect and manage the unexpected. The resulting awareness and abil-
ity to improvise enables organizations to focus on “the interval between anticipa-
tion and resilience during which the unexpected is detected more or less swiftly
and managed more or less successfully” (Weick and Sutcliffe 2001, 159).

Louise Comfort (2005, 8) pointed out that the Hurricane Katrina response was
far from the ideal identified by Weick (1998; Weick and Sutcliffe 2001). In fact,
“The inability to identify and correct errors as the event evolved was a striking char-
acteristic of the disaster response system throughout this event.” Comfort has
shown (1999) that the creative ability of response organizations to become adap-
tive networks has been a notable factor in determining the relative success of
response and relief operations.

The U.S. Experience since 9/11

The United States, in a reaction to the September 11, 2001, attacks has
embarked on a massive attempt to coordinate the management of risks due to
extreme events. This effort has produced an impressive set of Presidential Deci-
sion Directives, National Strategies, plans, and organizations. The most obvious
initiative taken by the United States was the creation of the DHS, now the largest
civilian agency of the U.S. government with extensive responsibility for preserving
the safety and security of the United States. Perhaps the most significant accom-
plishment to date, however, is the attempt to create a truly integrated national sys-
tem for the preparation for, response to, and recovery from extreme events. Table 1
shows that prior to the formation of the DHS, the type of triggering event deter-
mined which federal agencies led the response, the type of federal response and
coordination, and how the federal agencies interacted with the states.

AGILITY AND DISCIPLINE 265

The DHS was tasked by Presidential Decision Directive Number Five to create
an integrated National Response System for all types of incidents (The White
House 2003). The implementing documents are the NRP and the NIMS. The
NRP provides the common policy base and national coordinating structure; NIMS
provides the ability to structure and manage the incident response. Together, they
provide the structure and discipline necessary to achieve many of the critical suc-
cess factors described above in the U.S. federal system. NIMS in particular can be
seen as creating the discipline and structure necessary for a response to complex
incidents. The NIMS objectives are stated as follows:

This system will provide a consistent nationwide approach for Federal, State, and local
governments to work effectively and efficiently together to prepare for, respond to, and
recover from domestic incidents, regardless of cause, size, or complexity. To provide for
interoperability and compatibility among Federal, State, and local capabilities, the NIMS
will include a core set of concepts, principles, terminology, and technologies covering the
incident command system; multi-agency coordination systems; unified command; train-
ing; identification and management of resources (including systems for classifying types of
resources); qualifications and certification; and the collection, tracking, and reporting of
incident information and incident resources. (DHS 2004a, 7)

266 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

TABLE 1
U.S. DISASTER PLANS IN 2001

Type of Event Federal Plan Lead Agencies State Role

Presidentially de-
clared disaster
(natural disaster,
terrorist attack)

Federal Response
Plan

Federal Emergency
Management
Agency; Federal
Bureau of
Investigation

Lead role, supported
by federal
resources

Environmental
disaster (release
of oil, toxic
substances)

National Contin-
gency Plan

Environmental Pro-
tection Agency;
Coast Guard

Parallel federal and
state roles

Nuclear/radiological
release

Federal Radiological
Emergency Plan

Department of
Energy; Federal
Emergency Man-
agement Agency

State and local sup-
port of federal
response

Wildfire National Inter-
agency Incident
Management
System

Department of
Agriculture

Federal lead in fed-
eral lands, state
lead in state lands

Biohazard/epidemic Medical Support
Plan, National
Disaster Medical
System

Department of
Health and
Human Services;
Centers for Dis-
ease Control and
Prevention

Federal support of
state and local
medical and pub-
lic health
response

The NRP and NIMS are intended to accomplish the following goals:

• align national coordinating structures, capabilities, and resources;
• ensure an all-discipline and all-hazard approach to domestic incident management;
• manage incidents at the lowest possible geographical, organizational, and jurisdictional

level;
• incorporate emergency management and law enforcement into a single structure;
• provide one way of operating for all events; and
• provide continuity of management from preincident to postincident.

Hess and Harrald (2004), in a Natural Hazard Observer invited comment,
raised questions about both the need for and future effectiveness of the new sys-
tem. Hurricane Katrina provides preliminary answers to their questions:

Will a centralized, highly structured, closed system entrusted solely to trained profession-
als work effectively for managing complex events? Was such a sweeping change necessary
to achieve immediate policy goals? What will be the unintended consequences of this pol-
icy initiative? (P. 1)

An Organizational Typology

The discipline provided by the ICS and the improvisation required by a prob-
lem-solving, open-system response are often assumed to be opposite ends of a lin-
ear scale. Recent experience prior to Hurricane Katrina, however, suggests that
these are not opposites, that agility and discipline can both be achieved. Successful
improvisation and creativity during the response to the attacks on the World Trade
Center are discussed by Kendra and Wachtendorf (2002), Mendonça (2005), and
Mendonça and Wallace (2004). Improvisation in the context of a successful imple-
mentation of an ICS structure during the response to the Pentagon is described in
Harrald, Renda-Tanali, and Coppola (2002). It is useful to think of discipline and
agility as orthogonal scales. If this is done, an organizational typology consisting of
four types of organizations can be created by combining the need for both disci-
pline and agility and shown in Figure 2. The four organizational types may be sum-
marized as follows:

Type 1:

Dysfunctional

• Relatively unstructured, poorly defined processes and procedures
• Relatively rigid, unable to move or change
• Weaknesses—unable to create repeatable or predictable processes, unable to adjust to

unexpected events or conditions

Type 2: Ad Hoc/Reactive

• Relatively unstructured, no defined processes and procedures
• Able to be creative and improvise

AGILITY AND DISCIPLINE 267

• Weaknesses—difficulty in creating and sustaining large organizations, difficulty in coordi-
nating with other organizations

• Strengths—ability to change rapidly, to adjust to the unexpected
• Examples—many international relief organizations during 2004 Tsunami response

Type 3: Balanced/Adaptive

• Defined structure, well-defined processes and procedures
• Able to be creative and improvise
• Weaknesses—leaders must be innovative as well as technically competent, selection and

training difficult
• Strengths—ability to mobilize and manage large, complex organizations, ability to change

rapidly, adjust to other organizations
• Example—U.S. Coast Guard performance in Hurricane Katrina

Type 4: Bureaucratic/Procedural

• Defined structure, well-defined processes and procedures
• Relatively rigid, unable to change

268 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

Unstructured Well Structured
Undefined Well Defined Process

Discipline

Creative
Culture

Rigid
Culture

Agility

Balanced/
Adaptive

Bureaucratic/
Procedural

Ad Hoc/
Reactive

Dysfunctional
U.S.

International

FIGURE 2
AN ORGANIZATIONAL TYPOLOGY OF RESPONSE ORGANIZATIONS

• Weaknesses—inability to recognize and adapt to unexpected events, danger of becoming
procedure-bound

• Strengths—ability to mobilize and coordinate large complex organizations, ability to
develop consistent training

• Example—DHS performance in Hurricane Katrina

Where are we in this typology? Since its formation, the DHS has expended con-
siderable effort on the dimension of increasing discipline by creating a true
national system (federal, tribal, state, and local) to prepare for, respond to, and
recover from extreme events. The motivation and focus has been terrorism, but the
approach is all hazards. The DHS focus on defining policy, structure, and process is
described above. Many disaster researchers believed that the ability to foster cre-
ativity, improvisation, and adaptability (the agility dimension) would suffer, as
shown in Figure 2 (e.g., see Hess and Harrald 2004). The ponderous, bureaucratic
response and recovery efforts following Hurricane Katrina show that these fears
were not unfounded. The DHS must now make efforts to create flexibility and agil-
ity while preserving the structure and discipline it has achieved. In terms of the
organizational framework, it must figure out how to make the national response
system support a Type 3 organization.

Alternatively, the massive coordination problems encountered by governments
and nongovernmental organizations during the international response to the
Indian Ocean Tsunami exposed the limitations of existing coordinating authorities
and mechanisms supported by minimal common structures and procedures. As
reported by Gelling (2005, 7, col. 1), “The strongest international criticism of the
relief effort in Aceh so far has been a lack of information-sharing and cooperation
among private aid groups, donors, and the four levels of government. Eight months
after the tsunami, in an effort to correct problems with coordination, the Indone-
sian government established the Aceh Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency
as an umbrella organization that monitors every project.” A long-overdue discus-
sion about improving the structural linkages between organizations, and develop-
ing improved logistical and information systems has begun. The highly agile, inter-
national response community has recognized a need to increase its abilities along
the discipline dimension, to move from a Type 2 to a Type 3 organization as shown
in Figure 2.

Conclusions

The federal government’s slow and ineffective response to Hurricane Katrina
has raised many questions about the National Response System defined by the
NRP and NIMS. It is doubtful that the extensive and expensive changes to the
National Response System preserved the agility, flexibility, and creativity that have
been essential in past response operations. It is a legitimate question to ask after
Katrina if the National Response System is sufficiently resilient to ensure an ade-
quate response to and recovery from a catastrophic event. Resilient systems avoid

AGILITY AND DISCIPLINE 269

catastrophic failure by “failing gracefully,” allowing time to adapt to unanticipated
conditions and to recover system functions. The National Response System, con-
sisting of organizations, plans, systems, technology, and people, could not adapt to
unprecedented challenges and failed catastrophically during the initial response to
Hurricane Katrina. Since its creation in 2002, the DHS has focused on increasing
the discipline in the national system through an extensive development of doctrine,
process, and structure and has neglected fostering the agility (creativity, adaptabil-
ity, improvisation) that has historically been the key to success. The perceived fail-
ure of the federal, state, and local governments after Katrina has provoked intense
criticism of leaders and response organizations. Responding to media reports of
failures of leadership, political forces are mobilizing to fix the perceived problem
prior to understanding the reasons for the failure of the system. Individual failures
such as the inability to comprehend the reality presented by Katrina, the lack of
critical competencies, and poor decision making occurred at all levels. However,
we must separate these individual failures from organizational system problems.

The Department of Homeland Security
must now make efforts to create flexibility
and agility while preserving the structure

and discipline it has achieved.

The organizational systems that respond to extreme events must be open sys-
tems that allow information to be gathered from and transmitted to the public and
nongovernmental organizations in addition to standard governmental sources.
They must promote distributed decision making and improvisation in the face of
unexpected events or conditions. We must recognize that the response to and
recovery from a catastrophic event cannot be successful if only emergency manag-
ers and first responders are prepared and expect to operate within a closed system.
We will fail if the only people who know emergency management plans and pro-
cesses exist are the emergency managers and if we operate in a closed community
with a closed language and protocol (the NRP contains an eight-page appendix of
acronyms).

The president and others are proposing to move the responsibility for the pre-
paredness and response to catastrophic events from the DHS to the Department
of Defense. The militarization of homeland security and emergency management
is a dramatic step with historic consequences. It assumes that the failure in Katrina
was a failure of discipline—that civilian emergency management cannot effec-

270 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

tively deploy and manage assets. The apparent conclusion is that because the mili-
tary command and control system is effective in deploying resources, it must be
capable of effectively and efficiently providing rescue and relief services. The mili-
tary can maintain command, control, and order during times of chaos; move
resources rapidly; occupy and hold territory; and sustain itself in adverse environ-
ments and will, therefore, continue to fill a critical role in response to extreme
events. The military is not trained or structured for the complex tasks of intergov-
ernmental coordination and collaboration needed when preparing for and
responding to extreme events. Ultimately the response to and recovery from a cat-
astrophic incident is about what V. A. D. M. Allen (2005) has termed “continuity of
society”: not only preserving life and property, but also sustaining the community,
recovering the regional society and the economy, and mitigating the impacts of
potential future disasters. These roles require federal, state, and local collabora-
tion and leadership and a disciplined and agile national response system. This is not
a time to attempt a simple fix by re-assigning responsibilities; it is a time to establish
necessary competencies, systems, and relationships that will ensure that the next
time a catastrophic event occurs we do not simply repeat the same mistakes with
different people or organizations in charge.

References
Allen, V. A. D. M. Thad. 2005. Keynote address to the George Washington University School of Public Policy

and Public Administration Symposium on Hurricane Katrina. George Washington University, Washing-
ton, DC, December 2.

Boehm, Barry, and R. Turner. 2004. Balancing agility and discipline: A guide for the perplexed. Boston: Addi-
son-Wesley, Pearson Education.

Carali, Richard, J. R. Stevens, B. J. Wilke, and W. R. Wilson. 2004. The critical success factor method: Estab-
lishing a foundation for enterprise security management. CMU/SEI 2004-TR-010. Pittsburgh, PA: Car-
negie Mellon University Press.

Carley, Kathleen M., and J. R. Harrald. 1997. Organizational learning under fire: Theory and practice. Ameri-
can Behavioral Scientist 40 (3): 310-32.

Cohn, Ruth E., W. A. Wallace, and J. R. Harrald. 1991. Organizing for response: The unresolved problem. In
Proceedings, 1991 International Oil Spill Conference, 29-33. Washington, DC: American Petroleum
Institute.

Comfort, Louise K. 1999. Shared risk: Complex systems in seismic response. Pittsburgh, PA: Pergamon.
⎯⎯⎯. 2005. Fragility in disaster response: Hurricane Katrina, 29 August 2005. The Forum, vol. 3, no. 3,

article 1. http://www.bepress.com/forum/vol3/iss3/art1.
Dynes, Russell R. 1994. Community emergency planning: False assumptions and inappropriate analogies.

International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters 12:141-58.
⎯⎯⎯. 2000. Governmental systems for disaster management. Preliminary Paper no. 300. Newark: Disaster

Research Center, University of Delaware.
Dynes, Russell R., and E. L. Quarantelli. 1968. Group behavior under stress: A required convergence of orga-

nizational and collective behavior perspectives. Sociology and Social Research 52:416-29.
⎯⎯⎯. 1976. Organizational communications and decision making during crises. Preliminary Paper no. 17.

Newark: Disaster Research Center. University of Delaware.
Gelling, Peter. 2005. Bill Clinton finds better relief coordination in Tsunami area tour. International Herald

Tribune, December 1.
Harrald, John R., and T. Mazzuchi. 1993. Planning for success: A scenario based approach to contingency

planning using expert judgment. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 1 (4): 189-98.

AGILITY AND DISCIPLINE 271

Harrald, John R., I. Renda-Tanali, and D. Coppola. 2002. Observing and documenting the interorgani-
zational response to the September 11 attack on the Pentagon. In Proceedings, 9th Annual Conference of
the International Emergency Management Society (TIEMS), 32-43. Waterloo, Canada: TIEMS.

Harrald, John R., and Linda Stoddart. 1998. Scenario based identification and structuring of information
needs for the response to complex international crises. In Proceedings, Fifth Annual Conference of the
Emergency Management Society, 295-306. Washington, DC: Emergency Management Society.

Hess, Charles, and J. R. Harrald. 2004. The National Response Plan: Process, prospects, and participants.
Natural Hazards Observer 28 (6): 1-2.

Kendra, James, and T. Wachtendorf. 2002. Creativity in emergency response after the World Trade Center
attack. Preliminary Paper no. 324. Newark: Disaster Research Center, University of Delaware.

Kreps, Gary A. 1991. Organizing for emergency management. In Emergency management: Principles and
practice for local governments, ed. T. E. Drabek and G. J. Hoetmer, 30-54. Washington, DC: Interna-
tional City Management Association.

Mendonça, David. 2005. Decision support for improvisation in response to extreme events: Learning from
the response to the 2001 World Trade Center attack. Decision Support Systems.

Mendonça, David, and W. A. Wallace. 2004. Studying organizationally-situated improvisation in response to
extreme events. International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters 22 (2): 5-29.

Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 10th ed. 1993. Springfield, MA: Webster, Inc.
National Incident Management System (NIMS) Integration Center, U.S. Department of Homeland Secu-

rity. 2004. NIMS and the Incident Command System. November 18. Position Paper. Washington, DC:
NIMS Integration Center, U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Quarantelli, Henry. 2005. Catastrophe’s are different from disasters: Some implications for crisis planning
and managing drawn from Katrina. Working paper, Disaster Research Center, University of Delaware,
Newark.

Roberts, Patrick. 2005. What Katrina means for emergency management. The Forum 3 (3): 4.
Rockhart, John R. 1979. Chief executives define their own data needs. Harvard Business Review 57 (2): 81-93.
⎯⎯⎯. 1981. The changing role of the information system executive: A critical success factor perspective.

Sloan Management Review, winter, pp. 15-25.
Rockhart, John R., and C. V. Bullen. 1981. A primer on critical success factors. June. Working Paper 60, MIT

Center for Information Systems Research, Cambridge, MA.
Tuckman, Bruce W. 1965. Developmental sequence in small groups. Psychological Bulletin 63:384-99.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). 2004a. National Incident Management System. March 1.

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
⎯⎯⎯. 2004b. National Response Plan. December. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Homeland

Security.
Walker, Ann Hayward, J. R. Harrald, D. L. Ducey, and S. J. Lacey. 1994. Implementing an effective response

management system. Washington, DC: American Petroleum Institute.
Weick, K. E. 1998. Improvisation as a mindset for organizational analysis. Organization Science 9 (5): 543-55.
Weick, Karl E., and Kathleen M. Sutcliffe. 2001. Managing the unexpected: Assuring high performance in an

age of complexity. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
The White House. 2003. Homeland Security Presidential Directive Number 5 (HSPD 5). Washington, DC:

The White House.

272 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY