Decision making in emergencies

Proposes that decision making is part of all management tasks and that it is particularly important for emergency managers as they often need to take decisions quickly on very inadequate information. Briefly reviews some of the particular problems of emergency decision. Looks at the usefulness of Vroom and Yetton’s decision process model for emergencies, before proposing a simplified problem classification based on three problem characteristics. Concludes by reviewing a collection of “emergency” decisions and analysing some of the common factors to suggest a number of simple action rules to be used in conjunction with the simplified decision process model proposed, the “emergency manager’s decision cube”.