If you’re anything like me, you long ago tired of the phrase “100 years of tradition, unimpeded by progress” being used to describe attitudes that have survived for too long in our line of work. While that may have remained an accurate reflection of the better part of the last 100 years, when the modern era of firefighting arrived in the 21st century, it brought a pace of technological progress unlike anything previously seen in the fire service. Many of those advances led to improvements in important areas such as training, safety and situational awareness, but they also came with a cost; there are now so many technology choices, for even the simplest of things, that it’s easy to get lost in it all.
Each of us, from the brand new recruit to the experienced chief officer, has an astounding array of advanced technology available, literally at our fingertips, at all hours of the day or night, both on the fireground and when making plans beforehand. Technological progress happens in places you might not expect and isn’t limited solely to devices powered by electricity. The latest app or gizmo is an obvious advancement, but so too is a seemingly simple modification to a hand tool. In their own way, each represents a technology change that could bring benefits but might also bring costs. Managing these changes could be a job all it’s own, yet most organizations lack the resources necessary to staff such a position. In the absence of a chief technology officer, we could do well to consider a few concepts from a world far from our own—software engineering and development.
You’re not gonna use it
Ron Jefferies—an inspiration to many programmers and the co-creator of a software design philosophy known as Extreme Programming—has a famously blunt saying about software features: “You’re not gonna need it.” He went on to say, “Always implement things when you actually need them, never when you just foresee that you need them.” His message to software developers was simple: Don’t write your program for what it might need to do; write your program for what it must do. You can always add something later. Stated in that manner, you may find yourself to be skeptical of his advice and rightfully so. Planning for the unknown is part of our job description, yet Jeffries seems to be saying “worry about it later.”
If we make a small twist, however, his idea can be turned into an effective filter for technology choices in the fire service. Consider this, instead: “You’re not gonna use it.” By the time you make your technology choices, you should have already thought about the unexpected and identified the strategic and tactical goals that need to be met. Having identified a goal, you must next identify the requirements necessary to accomplish it. If you keep a disciplined eye on the specific items that your tools must accomplish, you’ll often be rewarded down the road. Resist the temptation to blindly choose a “high technology” tool with a bunch of excess features unless you’re certain those features are a true necessity. You might think you’re making a wise investment in all that potential capability, but there is a subtle risk: Complexity leads to confusion. That shiny new device with multiple options looks tantalizing from a bang-for-your-buck perspective, but it might collect dust if your people are unsure of what it can do or how it is used. A tool sitting unused is a tool you might as well not have and if used with lack of knowledge it can be downright dangerous.
Worse is better
Another thing you’ll hear from software engineers is “Worse is better.” Many times a device with fewer features (“worse”) is a better fit for your organization or outperforms the one with a large feature set that promises to be a Jack-of-all-trades (“better”). Remember that “better” is not without consequences. Any time an organization chooses (or accepts) a new technology, it also incurs the responsibility to provide initial and ongoing training on its function, use and maintenance. Especially in the case of highly advanced digital tools, it’s easy to let yourself think that since you don’t plan to use a feature, you won’t need to train on it. The problem is that many advanced systems are so tightly integrated that it’s no longer safe to assume you can overlook individual pieces of the puzzle. The part you need to use may very well rely on the one you plan to ignore.
In the end, it comes down to this: A simple tool designed for a simple job will be simple to operate; a complex tool, used for a simple job, will often be complex to operate. If you’ve been in the fire service for any length of time, you know that a firefighter will choose the simple tool over the complex one whenever possible.
Finding the fit
None of this is to say that we should go back to the bad old days of tradition without progress. We’re still in the early days of the next revolution in firefighting and the progress we’ll see in the coming years will be astonishing. Navigating the transition to a truly high-tech fire service will require sure footing as we climb a sometimes slippery digital slope. Delivering on our three core responsibilities—life safety, incident stabilization and property conservation—will continue to require that we utilize the most effective tools for the job. As those tools become more and more automated, they have the opportunity to change at a pace to which we may not yet be accustomed. Managing that change is a matter of selecting the right technologies that fit your organization’s priorities, resources, goals and staff. You may be surprised by how often you find that the “worse” choice is the right choice.
