“Backplan” for Effective Company Training
DEPARTMENTS
training notebook
With each emergency response, a simple, subconscious process of backward planning occurs. Before responding, you must identify where you’re going; and prior to determining the best route to get there, you must first know where you are. Your plan of action starts from where you need to be and moves backward to where you are and how best to reach your goal.
Think what would happen if an alarm for a structural fire came in and everyone took off before knowing where they are and where they were going. You could make excellent time—and get nowhere.
Unfortunately, that’s how most of us conduct company level training. We receive an assignment and then run off to execute it with little or no thought of where we are, where we need to go, or how we expect to get there. In other words, we’re lost.
Effective, on-going company level training is critical to efficient fire department operations. Yet, many company-level personnel lack the ability to prepare and conduct quality training. Consequently, little actual training takes place. We end up being taught about a task, rather than developing the skills to effectively perform it.
Also, few, if any, fire departments carry the financial clout to maintain the huge training staff and facilities necessary to conduct complete and thorough training programs at the company level. Where then, does good, solid training come from?
With proper preparation, it can come from your own firefighters.
Borrowing from the alarm response situation, let’s look at how we can consciously apply the same backward planning process for increased training effectiveness. Let’s see how the “front-line” fire officer or firefighter can identify and set the training objective, then “backplan” the steps to achieve it.
The first step is to identify the objective, the “where we are going.” Second, identify the starting point, the “where we are now.” Next, lay out the steps required to achieve the objective, “how to get from where we are, to where we are going.” Let’s look at each individually.
THE OBJECTIVE
Because training is preparation for performance, a specific objective is required to provide a clear understanding of what that performance must be.
First, determine the task to be performed. For example, suppose your company officer approached you with the following: “We didn’t do well on that extrication this morning. It took too long to get those people out of that car. We just didn’t seem to know how to use the tools properly. You’re our most experienced rescue tool operator. I want you to put together a class so we can do better next time.”
This is typical of how training assignments are handed out. There doesn’t seem to be a lot to go on, and this type of assignment often contributes to fruitless training. But there is more here than what appears at first.
Recognizing the need for a clear direction in which to channel your training program, ask yourself and your officer some definite questions:
- What specifically do you want accomplished?
- What are the weakest areas?
- How well should the firefighters be able to perform in these areas (to what standard)?
These questions will help both of you focus on what will be expected of the firefighters at the completion of the training. They let you know “where you are going.”
If, after asking these questions, you still need specific guidance, call on your own experience of working with your fellow firefighters to determine in just what areas the training should take them.
More often than not, just as in our example, the true training objective is contained in the officer’s statement.
It indicates the problem (“We just didn’t seem to know how to use the tools properly”) and the task to be accomplished by the training program (to be “better next time”). Obviously, there is no guarantee that the same individual will work the same tools on each incident, so all crew members will need the training. Therefore, you can set this objective: Each member will demonstrate more efficient use of extrication tools.
Notice the emphasis. “Each member” clearly defines who must perform the task and insures thorough company training. “Demonstrate” helps insure effective training by requiring actual performance of a skill. Remember, skill development, not skill awareness, is the objective of all training.
Now you know where you are going. But you’re not ready to move there yet.
To know what constitutes “more efficient use of extrication tools,” you need to know where the inefficient use is. That’s the second step in backplanning.
THE STARTING POINT
Identify where you are right now, at what level of performance. This can be determined by asking your officer about the weak areas.
He may reply, “It took almost 10 minutes just to get the gear and set it up!”
TRAINING NOTEBOOK
Continued from page 10
From your experience and research, you know, under most conditions, setup shouldn’t take more than, say, three minutes. That’s your starting point. Your level of performance in preparation is well below average.
To raise this level of performance, you must train your people to execute the task within three minutes. This becomes a performance standard, stated: Each member will remove and set up the (specific item) within three minutes.
The standard is the measure of the objective, and must be established to determine training effectiveness. But, accomplishing the standard does not assure achieving the overall objective, which is the more efficient use of the extrication tools. Improving preparation/setup time is accomplishing only one part of the complete objective. There may be any number of stumbling blocks between you and a quick and efficient extrication, such as proper placement of air bags, points of penetration into the vehicle with the tools, to name just a couple. But by following the procedures outlined thus far, each weakness can be identified and overcome with training.
THE PROCESS
This is the phase where you decide “how to get where you are going.”
An excellent way to determine the steps necessary to achieve the objective is to pre-test for individual proficiency. This way, you can actually see where serious weaknesses are. But pre-testing takes enormous chunks of time, something most of us aren’t blessed with. So, it’s back to asking specific questions and drawing from your own experience.
A word of caution here. Don’t presume that everyone needs to start at the beginning. Good training is knowing who needs what training in which areas. Don’t force your people to re-learn something that only needs practice.
Continuing the process, to achieve the main objective, we may have to establish intermediate objectives (through backplanning) for each related task. For instance,, in addition to poor equipment setup time, suppose there is a problem with a basic operation, such as the proper use of a tool on a vehicle for maximum benefit. Perhaps a firefighter doesn’t even know how to use peripheral items of equipment like chock blocks, salvage covers, etc.
Your job now is to lay out these related tasks in logical sequence. In this way, your training can be broken into smaller segments, making it more manageable and effective.
For example, suppose your people don’t know how to hook up the hoses for the hydraulic rescue tool. It wouldn’t be effective to train them on how to open a car door or even how to change tips. Nor would it be useful, at this stage, to show them how to cut the roof off a car. What they need most is to know how to hook the thing up. Essentially, they have to know how to make it operational before they can operate it.
But before any training begins, make sure the firefighters know what is expected of them.
CONCLUSION
Our efficiency in firefighting, medical emergencies, or any other area of emergency response can be improved through effective company level training. By backplanning and making use of the expertise within our own rank and file, better performance standards can be achieved. We must focus on how well individuals execute an evolution rather than on how well we can make a presentation.
