Training leaders to make decisions under pressure
Effective decision making is a critical part of emergency management. These tools are supporting the needs of decision makers across the country.
During the 2025 Taree floods, incident managers’ thought processes and operational decision making were directly influenced by training they had received based on a Centre project.
The project developed a new set of training and learning products for emergency managers, supporting them to make time-critical decisions in dynamic, uncertain, complex, and stressful environments.
Daniel Austin, Deputy Commissioner of NSW State Emergency Services, says the tools were used in professional development workshops for NSW SES incident controllers in late 2024 and early 2025.
“The workshop explored decision-making theory, helping both new and experienced incident management leaders gain insight into how they make decisions – not just the outcomes,” Deputy Commissioner Austin says.
“Since the workshop, and during heightened operational activity, senior staff and incident controllers have expressed how the workshop changed the way they make decisions and their thought process. If that is not success, I don’t know what it is.”
Effective decision making is considered essential for emergency managers. In addition to technical skills, they also need to effectively communicate, coordinate, cooperate and cope with stress and fatigue. Situational awareness and effective decision making under pressure are vital.
Initial research developed a set of tools using a human-centred design approach. This work expanded in the Enhancing Decision-making in Emergency Management project, which has developed an incident and emergency management decision model for Australia.
The project involves researchers working together with a range of end users from NSW Fire and Rescue, Queensland Fire Department, Tasmania Fire Service, Northern Territory Police Fire and Emergency Services, Airservices Australia, AFAC, SA Department of Environment and Water, NSW SES, Fire Rescue Victoria, WA DFES.
The aim is to standardise decision making across services, teams and incident controllers nationally, allowing everyone to speak the same language in the most complex and extreme circumstances.
The tools have been used widely in practice to enhance team functioning and decision-making skills in emergency managers across Australia.
Rob Webb, then Chief Executive Officer of the Australian and New Zealand Council for fire and emergency services (AFAC), says AFAC is collaborating with the project’s researchers to develop an evidence-based decision-making guide for incident controllers, incident management teams, instructors and learning designers.
“The ‘Enhancing Decision-making in Emergency Management’ project, supported by Natural Hazards Research Australia, addresses a persistent challenge: helping emergency managers clearly justify their decisions under pressure.
“In recognition of this need AFAC is actively collaborating with Adj A/Prof Greg Penney, A/Prof Chris Bearman, and Dr Peter Hayes to develop an evidence-based guide that translates over a decade of research into practical tools for decision-making across all levels of emergency management. This has been possible because of the Centre's support for the ‘Enhancing Decision-making in Emergency Management’ research project.”
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