Gregory Vigneaux

consulting

Adding Value to Emergency Management Consulting

A complex abstract mode of thought changes how things are understood and attended to in the world around the emergency manager.

update

The International Emergency Management Society Conference Accepted Talk

The following proceeds from the pivotal stance that uncertainty is a matter of unclear relationships of cause and effect in the emergency manager’s operational context.

self-organization

Coherence and Incident Management Part 2: Self-Organized Ops and Coherence

In my last post, I discussed the appearance of coherence in Humberto Maturana's work and offered a definition for the term. The following post pulls from Part 1's discussion of coherence and applies it to the design of strategies for self-organized incident operations.

self-organization

Coherence and Incident Management Part 1: Definition

I am interested in what it means for something to be coherent. In particular, I find myself wondering about the coherence of self-organizing systems responding to incidents.

update

Stories and the Trouble with Compression

This post proceeds from the observation that there is a far-reaching desire to compress the big and complex into the small and simple, a concept similar to reductionism. The following will explain compression and argue it should be cautious, as compression can cause a loss of detail and meaning.

decisionsupport

Complexity, Experience, and Decision-Making

“When someone says, ‘It’s complex.... the word complex does not constitute an explanation, but rather indicates the difficulty of explaining" -Edgar Morin

decisionsupport

A Decision Support Tool for Emergency Management

The takeaway is a decision-making support tool produced for and by the group making the decision. When completed, the tool visually represents an evaluation of a decision that can further support decision-making processes.

Systems Thinking

Emergency Management Organizations are Flow Systems

At first, flow thinking appears as a simplistic way of thinking. However, looking at the elements of flow systems reveals an enormously dynamic entity.

design foundations

In Defense of Hierarchies

The distributed control promised by networks can shrivel up with the wrong leadership. In the same way, it can be conceived that the centralization of authority in hierarchies can be distributed. The contention here is that hierarchies are not the problem. It's not hierarchies, it's us.

longing

An Audible Longing for Theory Part 2

A "something for everyone" approach to the communication of theory may be most appropriate to answer the call of an audible longing for theory found throughout the emergency management and wildfire communities.

Insights

The Adjacent Emergency

This post discusses the discovery of the present's capacity to tip over into an emergency state as events unfold and mitigations fail. Locating this tipping point is explored from the angle of experience in wildland firefighting.

matrix

Trivariate Relationships in Organizational Change

The objective of the matrix is to get all involved to think prospectively about the events they may encounter over time and then link those events to the type of responses they may trigger.

Insights

Making Decisions Under Uncertainty with Niklas Luhmann: Insights for Managing Emergencies

The concept of uncertainty absorption is important for anyone making decisions to understand but is especially relevant to those making decisions regarding what actions others should take.

longing

An Audible Longing for Theory Part 1

While there is certainly still value in presenting theory that has the primary goal of getting an audience to think differently, there are at the same time pressing issues that theory should be mobilized towards. Both points are valid.

Insights

Organizations as Complex Adaptive Systems: Insights for Managing Emergencies

A look at complex adaptive systems followed by a discussion of the relevancy of the theory to practice.

update

The Cluster Approach: Another Incident Response System

A short post on the Cluster Approach used in some humanitarian emergencies. Founded on coordination, the cluster approach sits somewhere near the opposite end of the spectrum from the command and control Incident Command System.

matrix

A Matrix About Change: Adaptive Capacity, Transformation, & Dissolution

Part 2 of a discussion of the talk I gave at Red Hat "Risk, Vulnerability, and the Precarity of Identity." This post focuses on bringing together the theory in post 1 to discuss change.

matrix

A Matrix about Change: The Precarity of Identity

Part 1 of a discussion of my talk "Risk, Vulnerability, and the Precarity of Identity" given at Red Hat Open Shift Commons. This first post discusses the key theory.

Insights

Chaos and Complexity Theory: Insights for Managing Emergencies

An overview of chaos and complexity theory with discussion of how both theories might be used in managing emergencies.

Insights

Organizations, Systems, and Constraints: Insights for Managing Emergencies

While reading for the last post I came across Edgar Morin's work on constraints. Given constraints were touched upon in the last post, I thought it would be interesting to devote an entire post to the topic and further elaborate on striking a balance between disorder and order.

Insights

Planning & Organizing with Edgar Morin: Insights for Managing Emergencies

This series begins by exploring the familiar discussion of planning and organizing for adaptation from the perspective of French sociologist Edgar Morin.

Insights

Insights for Managing Emergencies Series Introduction

This series explores the application of theory to the planning, organization, and management of emergencies.

How Complex Situations Feel: Edgar Morin

Pursuing the question "How do complex situations feel?" through the work of Edgar Morin and others.

domains

How we have Experiences: Domains of Reality

"The world we live in every moment is the realm of all the distinctions that we make, that we think we can make, that we thought we would make, or that we thought we could not make as human beings in the course of our living" - Ximena Dávila Yáñez & Humberto Maturana

update

Introduction to Systems Thinking Self-Study Course at the Center for Homeland Defense and Security: Update

Introducing and sharing the first round of updates on the Introduction to Systems Thinking course coming to the Naval Postgraudate School's Center for Homeland Defense and Security late this fall.