Crew Resource Management and incident command pocket cards for technical operators, for rapid decision-making under stress and clean handover.
Every technique comes from a field that has paid for it - aviation, anaesthesia, nuclear
operations, emergency medicine, wildfire command. Nothing here is invented, and every
technique's learn/ document names where it comes from.
Organised by point in time. Each card is a memory aid, not a lesson: mnemonics are spelled out so you never have to look anything up mid-incident.
- ⚓ Always - what holds regardless of which card you are on
- 🚦 Before a Change - time-out, pre-mortem, go/no-go
- 🚨 During an Incident - reset, scope, decide, stop rules
- 🤝 Handover Brief - SBAR and check-back
- 🔍 Blameless Postmortem - after an incident or a change
Theory, origin, worked example, and the limits of each technique. Every document names its source.
Always
- 🩺 IMSAFE - are you fit to operate?
- 🔁 Three-Way Communication - closing the loop on an instruction
- 🤐 Sterile Cockpit - silence during critical phases
- 📢 PACE and the Two-Challenge Rule - raising a concern to someone senior
- 👥 Incident Command Roles - commander, comms, operations
Before a change
- 🛑 Surgical Time-Out - the enforced pause before an irreversible act
- ⚰️ Pre-mortem - assume it failed, and ask why
- 🚦 Go / No-Go Poll - why silence must not count as agreement
✈️ Pre-Committed Triggers - why no card here prints a rollback number- ➡️ Plan Continuation Bias - the pull to press on regardless
- 👥 Two-Person Rule - dual control for irreversible actions
- 👉 Pointing and Calling - say the target out loud
During an incident
- ⏸️ 10 for 10 - ten seconds to buy ten minutes
- 🔲 Is / Is-Not - draw the boundary before hunting the cause
- 🚀 FOR-DEC - deciding under time pressure
- 🔒 Fixation Error - why you cannot notice your own tunnel vision
- ⏱️ Fatigue and Performance - the evidence behind every time limit here
Handover
- 💬 SBAR(C) - handing over control
Afterwards
- 🔍 Blameless Postmortem - learning without blaming
- 🔍 5 Whys - asking why until the answer is systemic
- 🧀 Swiss Cheese and Latent Conditions - holes made long before the incident
- 🐚 SHELL Model - checking every interface
- 🔄 Safety-II and Work-as-Done - studying what goes right