Northwest Center Manager’s Advisory Council
*DRAFT* Conference Call Notes: June 3, 2010
Attending: CBD, JDC, MIC, UPF, CWC, BMC, COC, KFC, SAD, VAD, NEC, EIC, LFC, SUF, CCC, PSC
Reviewed Agenda.
NWCC positions
Dan O’Brien accepted NWCC Ctr Mgr position
Emergency Ops Mgr vacancy closed May 27—awaiting cert from ASC
Working w/NPS to hire Fire Analyst—will have detailers in the position through the fire season.
National Center Manager Call Notes

Oil Spill—FS will not mobilize agency employees without Sec of Ag approval. NICC exploring a
method for obtaining blanket approvals for rostered individuals.

Dispatch Improvement Project—Adopting a 2-phase approach to implementing WildCad as a
national CAD. No date set. Currently framing governance issues to develop standards for
dispatch. 14 individuals rostered as SMEs.
NW Dispatch Steering Committee
Discussed 3 alternatives:
1. No action. Leave the NW DSC as is.
2. Dissolve the group; implement task groups as needed.
3. Utilize the group’s GATR reps as a conduit other than Center Mgrs for upward reporting of
dispatch issues/concerns. An OR rep and WA rep would be chosen to attend NW CMC
calls/meetings as voting members
Some members of the group voiced confusion on the differences between NW CMC and the NW DSC.
Reading through the respective strategic documents:
NW DSC—Chartered to Operations Working Team, a “focal point” for dispatch issues; serves as
a forum for issue development and resolution and makes recommendations to the larger
dispatch community; acts primarily within the scope of the NW Dispatch community; members
are reps from dispatch offices within SubGeo Training Areas that may or may not have
responsibility/authority for individual dispatch office decisions; generally NOT a decision-making
body.
NW CMC—Charters to PNWCG directly in an advisory role; acts in a leadership capacity within
the Geographic Area; compiles its own program of work through a strategic assessment of
dispatch needs/issues; acts in partnership with the Geographic Area and National Coordination
and has formal links with each. Members composed of Dispatch Office Center Managers who
have responsibility/authority for dispatch office decisions and coordination with local
agency/cooperator leads. A decision-making body within the NW Dispatch Coordination Group.
In short, the NW CMC is intended to function as an extension of National and Geographic Area
Coordination framework. Because of this, local issues can be voiced to PNWCG and NWCG/NMAC.
ACTION ITEM: The group deferred the NW DSC decision; instead Dan O’Brien will contact the NW DSC
chair, Renae Crippen, and have her convene the NW DSC to discuss preferred alternatives for the
group’s future. The group will provide an answer back by the July NW CMC call.
Strategic Planning
Quick review of NWCG Strategic Planning Process. NW CMC has completed the process down to Step 4
(see attached doc: IntroToStrategicPlans.docx).
At this point, the group needs to determine the major functional areas that exist for the
dispatch/coordination business.
ACTION ITEM: Center Managers are to develop dispatch general business functions (for example:
operations, training, policy) and provide a goal for each. An example of this is provided in the
attached document. Return business functions and goals to Dan O’Brien by July 1.
A Strategic Planning Task Group was formed to complete the strategic planning process:
Katie McConnell and Renae Crippen were retained from the Executive Committee since they comprise
the NW CMC leadership. Dave Quinn and Mark Hayes will fill out the Task Group. Dan O’Brien will
facilitate the group.
Other Business
Resource Availability in ROSS—Question: Can we utilize ROSS for daily resource status rather than
emailing/faxing forms from office to office?
Much discussion on this issue but was focused around two distinct areas:
1. There isn’t a standard convention for statusing resources in ROSS.
2. Dispatch offices don’t have a good understanding of how daily status reports are used in NWCC
protocols.
The group didn’t resolve this issue.
ACTION ITEM: Sherry Kessel to write up a briefing paper on this issue and submit via email to Dan
O’Brien for future action. Due by next NW CMC call.
Mobilizing IMS teams—IMSM, IMSA, and IMST rostered separately from IMT. The host unit will roster
IMSM.
Next C all
Next NW CMC call will occur on Thursday July 8th at 1300.
Future calls will be scheduled on first Thursday of the month at 1300.
Thanks to Kathi May for taking notes.
Dan O’Brien, NWCC Center Mgr.
June 7, 2010
1 attachment
Attachment 1: NWCG Strategic Plans:
A Brief Introduction to What They Are and What They Do
As the name implies, the intent of a strategic plan is to develop strategies for coping with critical
business (or other) issues. Details of specific strategies are NOT part of the plan; rather, each one
provides the focus around which detailed business tasks can be prepared and implemented.
NWCG Strategic Plans are structured so the user must take deliberate steps in the planning process,
beginning with a very broad vision and ending with a list of objective strategies. Once the list is
prioritized, a program of work should be apparent.
Steps of the NWCG Process
Step 1: Vision Statement
This broadly defines a desirable business state of being. It is not objectively measurable, but can
delineate certain parameters that help to define its scope. For example:
“Clear leadership and direction facilitates a coordinated response within the local fire management
community and in partnership with Geographic Area and National response frameworks.”
Step 2: Mission Statement
With broad parameters set in place, the intent here is to describe the actions necessary to enable the
vision to come into being:
“…maintain dispatch capability through mentoring and inter-office cooperation…ensure program
sustainability through training, coordination with partners and cooperators, and comprehensive
successional planning.”
Step 3: Articulate Guiding Principles
Guiding principles espouse the values of the business group. They illuminate qualities the group
embraces and wishes to advertise to its customers. They also define how business is conducted inside
the group. Here’s an example of a clearly articulated guiding principle:
Leadership
 Act with intention. Engage responsibility and follow through on commitments.
 Pursue a positive work environment that fosters inclusiveness, teamwork and personal growth.
Step 4: Define Goals
Though described as “goals” in this process, what we’re really trying to describe are broad categories by
which we can structure or partition our business functions. “Operations” might be one example.
“Training” or “Tech Transfer” or “Marketing” are also examples. Once the different business functions
are identified, a realistic goal is set for that function to achieve:
“Goal 1: Operations—consistent business practices promote greater efficiency, enabling individuals to
quickly and easily transition from office to office during periods of critical activity.”
Step 5: Develop Objectives
We’ve reached the stage where critical issues and details begin to matter. Objectives should define a
desired end state and, being objective, should be reasonably measurable. Individual objectives should
accomplish some task that will serve, in part, to achieving the goal of a particular business function. For
example:
“Dispatch offices utilize a standard, centralized method for statusing resources.”
Step 6: Identify Factors Critical to Success as well as the Barriers
Every task has some element critical to accomplishing that task as well as a barrier that prevents a
successful outcome. The factors and barriers that you identify should relate in some fashion to the
objectives listed for a business function. As an example, for the objective listed above:
Critical Factor: Method should be available, accessible, and commonly understood.
Barrier: Cultural or traditional bias towards one particular method.
Step 7: Identifying Strategies
Our job at this point is to tie all the steps together, developing strategies that account for critical
factors/barriers while accomplishing the objectives that serve to achieve the goal of a business function.
Strategies should be general; they should point in a particular direction, but not necessarily describe the
mode of travel. That level of detail is achieved by actually doing the work. Here are a couple of
strategies that might be listed when addressing Step 5 and 6 above:
Develop standard ROSS protocols for documenting resource status.
Use dispatch conferences to hold seminars on standard protocols.
At this point, the Strategic Plan is complete. Unfortunately, the work is just beginning. The group must
still prioritize the strategies applicable to each business function, as well as come to an agreement on
which of the strategies addresses the most pressing needs. Time, schedule, and funding, of course, tend
to dictate how many strategies are acted upon at any one time. So does the willingness and desire of
the individuals within the group. Each must have a stake and must be willing to engage the work that
must be done.
On the next page are examples of the strategic planning process at work.
Goal 1: Decision Support
Decisions are supported by robust applications and technologies that ably model and describe the
wildland fire environment.
Objectives
Technologies and applications adequately
describe the fire environment.
Factors Critical to Success
Relevant case studies are identified.
Case studies describe critical NW fire events.
Completed case studies exist and are
accessible.
Decision support services are readily
available.
Adequate cadre of practicing fire analysts
and tech specialists exist.
Decision-makers effectively frame risk
decisions through consistent use of fire
analysis.
Decision-makers well-informed on the utility
and use of fire analysis exist.
Practitioners have uniform and easy access to
decision-support tools.
Web-based decision-support tools and/or
tech permissions universal across the
wildland fire agencies.
Barriers
Agency IT differences.
Travel/training funding.
Availability of decision-makers.
Strategies
A. Develop feedback mechanisms for
existing analysis methods and
technologies.
B. Develop mechanisms for eliciting
critical case studies.
C. Establish case study standards.
D. Establish methods for cataloging,
storing, and disseminating case studies.
E. Integrate with existing Agency
Administrator/Line Officer workshops
and conferences.
F. Develop AA/LO workshops and
conferences that target specific fire
analysis issues or experiences.
G. Develop web-based training systems for
using fire analysis in risk-based
decision-making.
H. Engage IIOG for uniform access and
availability of decision-support tools.