Article 37. Restructuring Government for Quick Response.
Bureaucracies require authorizing paperwork before anything can be done. This was thought to be necessary because control at the local level will be lost and procedures both fiscal and otherwise will be violated. This brings every unplanned action that has to be done immediately to a halt and destroys the capability of workers in the field trying to bring relief to disaster victims. First response workers like firemen and police get around this problem through situation training drills where detailed procedures lead to automatic decisions and actions.
Problems in the field where on the spot decisions need to be made can best be solved by the implementation of Work Improvement Teams (WITs) which I have recommended in several of my articles. In this case the teams are made up of personnel in the field who can quickly get together to come to a consensus as to how best to solve an immediate problem. In addition where individuals are dispersed from other team members modern communications can allow consensus to be gotten without a meeting.
There may be an advantage to having team members of varying special skills to bring a knowledge base to the field with connections for access to resources. The WIT is preauthorized to make all the decisions necessary to bring immediate aid to disaster victims. Judgment as to whether the team has made the proper decision in specific instances occurs much later in a review of how improved responses can be made. The FEMA command center does NOT make field decisions NOR does it give approval for them but coordinates and delivers the much needed resources to the WIT at the disaster site. Note that the decision making process is driven down to the lowest level of the FEMA organization.
This is in contrast to the FEMA bureaucracy where nearly all decisions are made on the basis of rules or higher up in the organization. The WIT structure makes for a highly effective as well as efficient organization where two to three levels of a bureaucratic organization are no longer needed in the decision making process and are eliminated.
As an example in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina a local official while standing in the midst of rubble on the Gulf Coast decried on national television that “Trailers were needed for emergency housing NOW”. Adding “I don’t care what it takes just send them down here and we will decide how to use them”. FEMA has rules trailers must be hooked up for water and sewage and must be a specified height off the ground. Two weeks Later people are still living in the shells of their destroyed homes or in tents none of them have water and sewage connections and the trailers are still parked on mass in a field somewhere in Georgia.
For information on reforming bureaucracies and implementing WITs see the following articles: Article 1. “Reforming Business and Government Bureaucracies”, Article 11. “Adaptation of Manufacturing Quality Improvement Techniques to Achieve Efficient Government”, Article 12. “Which Approach to use in State Government ‘Cost and Schedule’ or ‘Work Improvement Teams‘?“, and Article 20. “Approaches for Different Types of Organizations”.
