ABSTRACT
Under the auspices of the Australasian Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre, investigations of leadership, culture, decision making, heuristics and biases, human error, and breakdowns and disconnects have been completed or are currently being finalised, as demonstrated by the many publications cited in this chapter. Human error is a normal artefact of work environments. To manage error within a system a sophisticated approach involves addressing both error minimisation and error recovery/management. Training and exercising are key components of a strategic move forward in effective organising above the Incident Management Team level. These activities support managers and coordinators to build and maintain a range of skills that are both technical (e.g., fire/flood behaviour) and non-technical (leadership, communication) in order to provide the most effective emergency management coordination possible. To this point, there has been far greater emphasis on training at the Incident Management Team level and below than there has been above.
