Introduced by a trusted connector?
Doctrine: Patterns for building resilient, federated systems. Use these guides to clarify how you want your system to behave, how you want decisions to be made, and what “good” looks like when the pressure is on.
Most organizations are very good at delivering projects. They are much less good at deciding which projects should exist in the first place. You can hit the holy trinity of project managementon time, on budget, in scopeand still ship something that does not move the needle for your customers or your mission. In medicine, prescribing…
What Hurricane Florence Taught Me About The Cost Of “Can-Do” Culture Field note context This story sits alongside two other pieces about how systems really behave under pressure, not how they look in a slide deck. This one adds a third angle. It is about what happens when a system depends on heroics, what it…
When people picture wildland fire, they usually see flames, aircraft, and line gear. What they do not see is the invisible network that moves people and aircraft to the right place at the right time. In the United States, that network is a three-tier dispatch and coordination system: If you work in tech or national…
Doctrine Claim: Technical work creates value – narrative work defends it. This field note explains why “doing the job” is not enough if you cannot explain the job to the people who sign the checks. The “Katrina Book” was not a souvenir – it was narrative infrastructure designed to protect the team from political decay….
How a self funded 26 foot mobile GIS and RF lab changed my understanding of forward deployed systems during Hurricane Katrina.
Know What Room You Are In: A Lesson From Hubbard Brook Note:This is one vignette from the 60th anniversary of the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in 2015. Names and technical details are simplified to keep the focus on the pattern. 1. Context: Hubbard Brook at 60 Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest is one of those rare…
A Forest Service Story About Narrative, Resilience, and Memory Disclaimer:This case study is based on volunteer work I did with a U.S. Forest Service region during the Chief’s Operation Care & Recovery effort. I developed this material independently and shared it with that region to support their resilience efforts. All interpretations, conclusions, and lessons here…
In late 2005, in places like Bay St. Louis on the Mississippi coast, I learned the hard way that trust and sovereignty mattered more than any federal logo on a badge. The backdrop: a coast that had already paid Hurricane Katrina did not hit every community the same way. New Orleans dominated the headlines, and…
Field Note Context: Fire and Aviation Management, United States Forest Service A former Navy camera operator joined USFS Fire and Aviation Management as a media specialist. His footage was sharp. His audio was clean. His compositions were strong. And yet, product after product was quietly rejected by the Washington Office. The problem was not his…
If you are responsible for a high-tempo mission system, especially one that spans nations and organizations, what are you actually hiring for when you put someone in charge of the technology stack You are not hiring a gadget person. You are hiring someone who can live with incomplete pictures, uneven partners and unforgiving timelines, and…
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