An Instructor's Lesson
Long ago and far away (Hey it's my commentary and if I want to turn it into a fairy tale then let me will ya') when I first became an instructor, I learned a technique about building an objective.
The objective I was told was the purpose behind any good lesson. After all it really determined what you are trying to accomplish.
This terminal objective, as well as enabling objectives really became the road map for where we were going.
The principle was very simple. It Involved A, B, C, D....
Audience - Who we were trying to target and reach.
Behavior - What we wanted them to actually learn or achieve.
Condition - What constraints would they be under while trying to achieve this behavior.
Degree - Was how well they were expected to perform this.
I have always really liked this method of preparing objectives and it has served me well. As of late I began to apply it to many other things other than lesson plans and I wanted to share them with you so that you might benefit from this idea.
Meetings:
The next time you are calling a meeting apply the ABCD principle to it before you call it.
Who needs to be there, what needs to be accomplished by this meeting, how long and what format will it be conducted in, and other outcomes that might affect this meeting or this objective.
I will bet that if you begin to do this you will schedule a lot less meetings because there is no clear objective. We are real good at setting agendas but not real good at outcomes and objectives.
If you are a participant of a meeting, ask politely and respectfully that ABCD format as I have above early on. It makes the meeting a lot shorter when they atrat scrambling to answer that. It also gets you uninvited to the next one so you can be more productive.
Grievances
The next time you submit a labor grievance apply the ABCD principle to it. Remember that the audience will change....initially it is the chief or department management, but ultimately it can end up at city hall. Write it for multiple audiences. When you are considering behavior think carefully about what you want to have happen as a result of this. Is it a specific action or a long term plan and are there other possibilities. Remember that the conditions will also be dynamic and what exists today may not exist tomorrow. Is it short term or long term applies to the degree. It could also be called winning the battle and losing the war! Try it it really does work and the behavior section is usually tougher to answer if you consider it properly.
General orders and SOPS
As a department manager decide before writing a general order who is the "real audience" and what behavior, what conditions and what degree there is. Too often you will find you are writing a general order that covers the entire department because you personally could not reprimand and discipline the dope that did a dumb thing! We hide behind the "I must treat everyone equally" facade and protect ourselves from dealing with one problem. The corrective behavior is easy, usually you want something to change or stop, and the degree is the tricky one. When you consider degree in a general order it means you will have to enforce it in the future. That really means the degree to which you will tolerate it in the future.
New Fire Service Trends, Tactics and techniques
Not every fire service tactic and technique that works in your department should be adopted. As we look at putting these new trends in service apply the ABCD rule to it. This has to be applied in two methodologies. Who was the audience doing the behavior under what conditions and to what degree, that developed this technique. Then apply ABCD to your own department, skills of the audience, the behavior is what you are trying to learn, the conditions of your own manpower and apparatus, and to the degree that it will or can be used. We are seeing large departments with much manpower delivering skills that they have performed a minimal number of times handing out techniques on a national level to departments who have much less manpower, trained less and experienced less attempting to implement these tactics. Think things through before you adopt them blindly into your training program. There are many good ideas that we should adopt, many we cannot or should not.
Cultures and behaviors
I was just sent an article that appeared in a trade journal about using a piece of rubber hose to buddy breathe between two airpacks. Very recently published. This is not old news. Let me show you how I apply the ABCDs to this one.....
The firefighters, who can overextend their air supplies, will take a crappy piece of plastic, under low or no air, in rapidly deteriorating conditions, and breathe off a guy's air supply who is as low as his, maybe until they both die. Perfect! Why didn't I think of that?
I have just published in Fire Engineering in the August Issue the Rapid Intervention Time Line. I obviously feel strongly about this issue and my beliefs are out there. I think about this subject (RIT), ladder bail, some of our ICS and current accountability training that we have not completely thought them through. We have departments saying they are using ICS and accountability and when we get to conditions and degree or even behavior in some cases we find that their application leaves some to be desired. Review and apply this theory in a very critical manner to your departments operations beliefs and cultures. As you begin to break it down look at ABCD as it is currently really being done in your department and then re-apply the ABCDs the way you would like it to be done. I think if you are honest with yourself there is a unique difference and this method of looking at it will help you refocus.
Fire Prevention and the Public
I will not go into detail but look at the ABCDs and match them to your audience. Look at the demographics of your community, look at your run reports and match your prevention efforts to what the "audience" really is. If you have a school program and 90 % of your responses are MVA's at a bad corner in town, then keep your school program and add a piece in the driver education section, work with legislators and town officials to solve the local problem. Your prevention mitigation efforts should be focused on where your alarms are. How much elderly population do you have? Are you addressing them? The behavior is simple, reduce your most common emergency service call by whatever methods you can. How's that for a wild concept! That may not even include Sparky the fire dog it might be Hector the Detector or some character you create.
This entire concept of applying the ABCD principle only is limited by your imagination. It really is measure what is currently going on as compared to the ABCD model, and then re-thinking it to get the results you desire. It works for all these things and other facts of life as well. Just for fun try it on your next vacation planning!
It is not only about minding your Ps and Qs, but your ABCDs also!
You really can learn a lot from an instructor can't you?