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Why control rooms fail

Control rooms – whether they be related to CCTV, emergency or traffic control – are designed and implemented to fulfil community or company needs.

In developing a solution, the development process brings various, and at times very different, parties together. Whether requiring the support of political parties, or whether fulfilling the needs of a public agency, the vested interests in control rooms introduce a number of political dynamics. The successful introduction of control rooms typically requires a strong champion who is passionate and committed to its introduction. This champion leads the process, coordinates the parties and balances the needs of all in order to achieve the objective. It requires diplomacy, facilitation skills and, at times, a strong determination and uncompromising values.

The roots of failure are often planted right in the beginning of the planning. The sponsors, whether they be government, private or other, usually have grand plans and concepts. These sponsors want to be recognised for having contributed to something that gives them status. Unfortunately, in many cases, having heard how much it is going to cost, their motivation wanes and they may even walk away. Either the project stops, is compromised, or is pursued with sponsors committed to making a success.

Another danger at this point is that the sponsor insists on a design that will look impressive but has little real functionality. At a conference recently, an installer let me know of a city in Portugal where the mayor had insisted on a huge wall of monitors in the control room. One of the key factors was because it would look so impressive to people visiting, including mayors of other towns. This is not an isolated incident; we find it happening in our country and all over the world. The champion's job is to control these desires as diplomatically as possible and channel them in a constructive fashion.

Control in the city

City centre control rooms often involve a number of law enforcement and other agencies. The failure of these agencies to agree, can lead to infighting, limiting of response facilities, staffing issues and disagreements over priorities. In extreme cases it can paralyse control rooms where the entire infrastructure has already been built. It is a key success factor to ensure agency responsibilities and obligations are agreed and written into agreements before the control room comes into operation. Otherwise, they are likely to resurface later. If the champion leaves or hands over control, the stage is set for a power struggle and all sorts of politics can occur. I would go as far to say that it is not the development of the control room but how well it functions afterwards that is the measurement of the success of the champion's work.

Sponsors or new management often do not appreciate the requirements and impact of the control room. After the champion leaves, there may be no clear direction for the control room afterwards. It is essential that there is a clearly defined and followed strategy to guide practices, development and capacity building for the future. Along with this is having clear deliverables and standards that the control room should maintain. Often control rooms will expand and take on a whole lot of new functions, only to find that they are no longer in a position to service their core responsibilities at a suitable level. With this goes their major source of funding.

Developmental support

The enthusiasm of developing a new control room usually creates a strong level of support, which includes budgetary support. People are far more willing to part with money at this stage. As things settle down and people start taking the services for granted, people start to question whether they need to carry on and financial support often dwindles. In some cases, the lack of cash flow into the control room can lead to its total failure. Budgets may not be planned for the long term, sustainability analysis has not been conducted and there is an overspending on initial infrastructure, which creates high maintenance and support costs. Long-term income needs to be planned for and accepted, particularly where this is based on private sponsorships rather than government or council grants. Funding through sponsorships is based on deliverables - the control room needs to sustain interests of stakeholders through an ongoing PR process of liaison and communication.

Monitoring progress

Control room deliverables need to be defined and performance criteria set and established so that people know the job is being done. This has direct implications for new control room management. There are cases where the responsible managers are appointed with little experience in the area they are responsible for. Often this is a political appointment or someone with links to one of the stakeholders. Many of these appointees are not capable of taking on the professional responsibilities required in leading the centre. Conversely, a manager may have extensive knowledge of the area, but few managerial skills and this can also lead to chaos and demotivation. A key failure point is that the new manager is not accountable to anyone and the failure to meet performance criteria is not noticed or the manager is not held responsible. Where the control room does not continue with a clear mission and objective, and the success of these are not measured on a regular basis, it is likely to fail a few years down the line.

One man's meat...

In the rush of enthusiasm to develop the new control room, various parties indicate what they would like, based on what they have seen elsewhere, what they think is 'cool' or what they think is 'right'. Everybody involved becomes an expert. In doing so, there is no referral to any professional specialist and a control room that is actively detrimental to effective operator performance is developed. This could include factors such as the room design, not separating equipment and the people sides, lighting, console designs, airconditioning, etc. Poor design principles compromise the effectiveness or work and lead to unhappy people. Eventually the control room gets a reputation of being a bad place to work.

Stick to standards

The failure to apply standards, competencies and qualifications necessary to the control room is a sure course for failure. Where there are no clear competency criteria for jobs, or for selection or promotion, there is an eroding of professional competency. This can happen initially because there is a belief that the technical capabilities of the control room are so advanced, that the inputs of personnel are neglected or even ignored. Alternatively, nepotism, whether based on family, personal or political appointments can lead to people being appointed who do not have the required skills. The lack of adherence to job requirements has resulted in the appointment of emergency operators who are not able to communicate properly or type at a suitable speed, CCTV operators who are incapable of visual monitoring, and dispatch operators who do not know the kind of resources they need to get to the problems they are faced with.

The ultimate reflection on control rooms is how people in the community feel about the way they are served. Recent health issues in council delivery of services indicate that communities get highly upset when major infections break out. The failure of a control room is less noticeable - ineffective dealing with individual incidents means that the control room dies a little at a time. But over a period of time it can lead to the same loss of lives or revenues that larger events can have. We should be able to expect professional services from both public and private control rooms. From their side, they need to ensure that they are matching their performance against required standards and continually developing resources and people to match the challenges.

Dr Craig Donald is a human factors specialist in security and CCTV. He is a director of Leaderware, which provides instruments for the selection of CCTV operators, X-ray screeners and other security personnel in major operations around the world. He also runs CCTV Surveillance Skills and Body Language, and Advanced Surveillance Body Language courses for CCTV operators, supervisors and managers internationally, and consults on CCTV management. He can be contacted on 011 787 7811 or [email protected]

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