A military field test found the soldiers without the heads-up display hit their objectives faster.
Allen, Texas Fire Chief Jonathan Boyd on why cognitive load, not capability, decides whether a new tool helps you on a call.
Jonathan Boyd has spent 30 years in the Allen, Texas fire department and has been its fire chief since 2018. He works through how he evaluates fire department technology: start with the problem instead of the product, measure the time penalty a new tool adds and where in the incident timeline it lands, and test it in the field rather than in a committee room. He also makes the case against the single pane of glass and explains where artificial intelligence in the fire service actually helps, which is in bounded roles that cut cognitive load instead of adding to it.
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN
- Why the first question is what problem are we solving
- How to measure the time penalty a new tool adds, and where in the call it lands
- Why best of breed beats one system that does everything poorly
- What a military heads-up display test revealed about cognitive load
- Where AI belongs, and where a human still has to stay in the loop
- How to give your own people room to fail on something small
TOPICS COVERED
-Why a fast-growing suburb cannot solve every problem by adding people
-Start with the problem, not the technology
-Asking why the problem exists in the first place
-Time as the enemy, and why one call clicks and the next one does not
-Colonel John Boyd and the OODA loop
-The case against the single pane of glass
-Best of breed, and who the tool is really for
-The biggest landmine is being afraid of landmines
-Measuring the time penalty: the lid, the bucket, the hose
-Field testing versus committee testing
-The heads-up display that slowed soldiers down
-Tools, human machine partners, and fully automated systems
-Bounded automation, from PASS devices to collision avoidance
-Advice for chiefs who feel behind
