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You read the story quite differently from me. I don't think he changed how they operated at all. He gave them a program which highlighted the most critical ca

You read the story quite differently from me. I don't think he changed how they operated at all. He gave them a program which highlighted the most critical calls for most urgent attention. That's EXACTLY how 911 operators are SUPPOSED to operate. CAD systems are supposed to do that but it can be difficult to properly do that when lots of calls come in - and when a really critical calls does come in, it frequently is reported multiple times leading to duplicates as other operators key it simultaneously. Many CAD systems will not automatically connect them and require intervention. It sounds like metrics like this and others were being used to automatically suggest critical calls. He helped them do their job, in the way they should do their job, but in a way which was efficient and directly led to better, and possibly life-saving, outcomes to residents of Seattle. But you are suggesting he should have been fired ? [edit:spelling]

CountSessine 11y ago
He helped them do their job, in the way they should do their job, but in a way which was efficient and directly led to better, and possibly life-saving, outcomes to residents of Seattle. How did it determine call priority? How did it order priority? How was the ordering presented? Was the computer system itself modified, or was it running on a parallel, out-of-band system? Did the call system computer need to run new, untested and unverified processes? Did the call system computer need new untested dependencies installed? Was the deployment procedure for the new system worked through with IT? Could IT restore a system with the new call prioritization display on it? What are the security boundaries for the new call system with the prioritization display? Is the threat model the same? Has he assembled a threat model? Does he care? Does he know what a threat model is? But you are suggesting he should have been fired ? On the spot.
- aeorgnoieang 11y ago
  Are all of your questions rhetorical? Or would the answers to them change whether you think Clemans should have been fired on the spot? Would it matter that, as badly as Clemans may have behaved, he was significantly better than the other IT staff that worked in the center? Just based on the post, I don't expect its author to even know enough to ask any of the questions you have. Why are you assuming the worst? Is there anything specific that makes you think Clemans was irresponsible?
  - CountSessine 11y ago
    Are all of your questions rhetorical? Or would the answers to them change whether you think Clemans should have been fired on the spot? If any of those answers were any different than what I expect they are, it would have required the participation of the larger IT apparatus at the SPD. In which case, his boss probably would have been suspended as well. Would it matter that, as badly as Clemans may have behaved, he was significantly better than the other IT staff that worked in the centre? better? That is positively dripping in thoughtless elitism. But for the sake of argument, better than the other IT staff who worked with their superiors to define solutions to requirements rather than railroading their pet ideas through? Better than the other IT staff who understand the extraordinary intolerance the public has for acute and sudden failure in public agencies? If this clueless cowboy had brought the 911 dispatch system down, heads would have rolled. Clemens can waddle off and get a new private sector job, but what about everyone else caught up in the mess? Just based on the post, I don't expect its author to even know enough to ask any of the questions you have. Why are you assuming the worst? Is there anything specific that makes you think Clemans was irresponsible? The hissy-fit he threw when he didn't get his way? Why, based on this article, would you ever give Clemens the benefit of the doubt? Especially when he's pitted against a public servant who has most likely risked his life on more than one occasion in the line of duty?
- numbsafari 11y ago
  Here's an important question: was the list of keywords he was using to highlight the calls in any way skewed such that it would, intentionally or not, result in one group of callers being prioritized over others? This could lead to accusations of racial bias.
jharger 11y ago
I don't know that much about 911 dispatch centers, but highlighting calls as more important definitely sounds like a change in the operation procedures of the center, and definitely sounds like it should have been approved first. Can you imagine the PR nightmare the captain would have had to deal with if someone died or was severely injured because one of the calls wasn't highlighted when it should have been? I think the captain was right here.
- meddlepal 11y ago
  PR nightmare... can you imagine the legal fallout? E911 operators are trained to treat every call as an emergency because that's what E911 is for. I don't think they can prioritize them either correctly, for example, how do you treat a domestic abuse call where the victim is talking in very abstract or nonsensical terms, for example, "I'd like to order a pizza?" in order to avoid alerting the abuser who might be a few feet away. Assign it a low priority and you risk getting someone seriously hurt or killed.
metric10 11y ago
Yes, it's how they are supposed to operate. But what makes a call "high priority?" Are 911 operators actually working off this list? What happens if the program fails; what's their back up plan? What happens if there's a bug in the program, is he going to fix it or will he have lost interest? Are their regulations about maintaining a log of what was displayed in case of a lawsuit? Where's the source code, what happens if this guy resigns 3 months later? There are so many questions that need to be answered and thought out. I'm sure it was a good idea and probably should have been pursued. As for firing him, it's not because of this program. It's because of the unprofessional way he reacted to criticism. The article says he actually had to be escorted out of the building. I would completely expect someone to be fired for that, especially if the SPD really where such a hostile environment to new ideas. I'm not saying he HAD to be fired, but the article seems to take the tone that the SPD was being unreasonable. It would seem they where being very accommodating even in light of his childish behavior.
- logfromblammo 11y ago
  Not knowing much of anything about 911 dispatch, this would be my short list of criteria for elevating call priority: - Caller has indicated a situation wherein a delay in the arrival of emergency responders may contribute to more serious harm being done in the caller's vicinity - Caller has indicated a situation wherein a delay in the arrival of emergency responders may result in them being unable to render any meaningful assistance - Caller has described a situation that may require multiple units of responders or multiple types of responder to bring under control - Caller is unable to respond to the dispatcher I would also assume that the normal method for elevating call priority would be for the dispatcher connected to the call to click a button or use a keyboard shortcut. I further assume that this priority was usually indicated by something like an asterisk in a table column, or even something like appending "-PRIORITY-" to the end of a string. The idea to highlight the entire row in a GUI for a priority call would not be inherently risky, other than the possibility that an extremely incompetent person might set Visible="Collapsed" or something. But I don't know any of the details. It may well be that the 911 dispatch software is so badly written that business logic is present in the view layer. I have seen it before in software used by government entities. The code is so brittle that everyone is deathly afraid of doing anything to it unless something is already clearly broken.
loco5niner 11y ago
> He gave them a program which highlighted the most critical calls for most urgent attention. Sounds like he changed how they operated to me
- timclemans 11y ago
  Calls are categorized by primary dispatchers. A Chief Dispatcher, the ones using this highlighting tool, used to ensure they saw messages they needed to see. The tool shows all messages at once whereas the tool they use right now can only show messages for one call at a time and doesn't highlight important ones.
  - loco5niner 11y ago
    I'm not making the point that it program you wrote isn't an improvement, which it sounds like it likely is, but that it would ,in fact, change how "they" operated.
gopowerranger 11y ago
That's not why he was fired.
- timclemans 11y ago
  I wasn't fired and wasn't asked to resign. SPD tried to keep me.

CountSessine 11y ago

He helped them do their job, in the way they should do their job, but in a way which was efficient and directly led to better, and possibly life-saving, outcomes to residents of Seattle. How did it determine call priority? How did it order priority? How was the ordering presented? Was the computer system itself modified, or was it running on a parallel, out-of-band system? Did the call system computer need to run new, untested and unverified processes? Did the call system computer need new untested dependencies installed? Was the deployment procedure for the new system worked through with IT? Could IT restore a system with the new call prioritization display on it? What are the security boundaries for the new call system with the prioritization display? Is the threat model the same? Has he assembled a threat model? Does he care? Does he know what a threat model is? But you are suggesting he should have been fired ? On the spot.

aeorgnoieang 11y ago
Are all of your questions rhetorical? Or would the answers to them change whether you think Clemans should have been fired on the spot? Would it matter that, as badly as Clemans may have behaved, he was significantly better than the other IT staff that worked in the center? Just based on the post, I don't expect its author to even know enough to ask any of the questions you have. Why are you assuming the worst? Is there anything specific that makes you think Clemans was irresponsible?
- CountSessine 11y ago
  Are all of your questions rhetorical? Or would the answers to them change whether you think Clemans should have been fired on the spot? If any of those answers were any different than what I expect they are, it would have required the participation of the larger IT apparatus at the SPD. In which case, his boss probably would have been suspended as well. Would it matter that, as badly as Clemans may have behaved, he was significantly better than the other IT staff that worked in the centre? better? That is positively dripping in thoughtless elitism. But for the sake of argument, better than the other IT staff who worked with their superiors to define solutions to requirements rather than railroading their pet ideas through? Better than the other IT staff who understand the extraordinary intolerance the public has for acute and sudden failure in public agencies? If this clueless cowboy had brought the 911 dispatch system down, heads would have rolled. Clemens can waddle off and get a new private sector job, but what about everyone else caught up in the mess? Just based on the post, I don't expect its author to even know enough to ask any of the questions you have. Why are you assuming the worst? Is there anything specific that makes you think Clemans was irresponsible? The hissy-fit he threw when he didn't get his way? Why, based on this article, would you ever give Clemens the benefit of the doubt? Especially when he's pitted against a public servant who has most likely risked his life on more than one occasion in the line of duty?
numbsafari 11y ago
Here's an important question: was the list of keywords he was using to highlight the calls in any way skewed such that it would, intentionally or not, result in one group of callers being prioritized over others? This could lead to accusations of racial bias.

jharger 11y ago

I don't know that much about 911 dispatch centers, but highlighting calls as more important definitely sounds like a change in the operation procedures of the center, and definitely sounds like it should have been approved first. Can you imagine the PR nightmare the captain would have had to deal with if someone died or was severely injured because one of the calls wasn't highlighted when it should have been? I think the captain was right here.

meddlepal 11y ago
PR nightmare... can you imagine the legal fallout? E911 operators are trained to treat every call as an emergency because that's what E911 is for. I don't think they can prioritize them either correctly, for example, how do you treat a domestic abuse call where the victim is talking in very abstract or nonsensical terms, for example, "I'd like to order a pizza?" in order to avoid alerting the abuser who might be a few feet away. Assign it a low priority and you risk getting someone seriously hurt or killed.

metric10 11y ago

Yes, it's how they are supposed to operate. But what makes a call "high priority?" Are 911 operators actually working off this list? What happens if the program fails; what's their back up plan? What happens if there's a bug in the program, is he going to fix it or will he have lost interest? Are their regulations about maintaining a log of what was displayed in case of a lawsuit? Where's the source code, what happens if this guy resigns 3 months later? There are so many questions that need to be answered and thought out. I'm sure it was a good idea and probably should have been pursued. As for firing him, it's not because of this program. It's because of the unprofessional way he reacted to criticism. The article says he actually had to be escorted out of the building. I would completely expect someone to be fired for that, especially if the SPD really where such a hostile environment to new ideas. I'm not saying he HAD to be fired, but the article seems to take the tone that the SPD was being unreasonable. It would seem they where being very accommodating even in light of his childish behavior.

logfromblammo 11y ago
Not knowing much of anything about 911 dispatch, this would be my short list of criteria for elevating call priority: - Caller has indicated a situation wherein a delay in the arrival of emergency responders may contribute to more serious harm being done in the caller's vicinity - Caller has indicated a situation wherein a delay in the arrival of emergency responders may result in them being unable to render any meaningful assistance - Caller has described a situation that may require multiple units of responders or multiple types of responder to bring under control - Caller is unable to respond to the dispatcher I would also assume that the normal method for elevating call priority would be for the dispatcher connected to the call to click a button or use a keyboard shortcut. I further assume that this priority was usually indicated by something like an asterisk in a table column, or even something like appending "-PRIORITY-" to the end of a string. The idea to highlight the entire row in a GUI for a priority call would not be inherently risky, other than the possibility that an extremely incompetent person might set Visible="Collapsed" or something. But I don't know any of the details. It may well be that the 911 dispatch software is so badly written that business logic is present in the view layer. I have seen it before in software used by government entities. The code is so brittle that everyone is deathly afraid of doing anything to it unless something is already clearly broken.

loco5niner 11y ago

> He gave them a program which highlighted the most critical calls for most urgent attention. Sounds like he changed how they operated to me

timclemans 11y ago
Calls are categorized by primary dispatchers. A Chief Dispatcher, the ones using this highlighting tool, used to ensure they saw messages they needed to see. The tool shows all messages at once whereas the tool they use right now can only show messages for one call at a time and doesn't highlight important ones.
- loco5niner 11y ago
  I'm not making the point that it program you wrote isn't an improvement, which it sounds like it likely is, but that it would ,in fact, change how "they" operated.

gopowerranger 11y ago

That's not why he was fired.

timclemans 11y ago
I wasn't fired and wasn't asked to resign. SPD tried to keep me.