Is it Possible to Assess an Organization’Preparedness for the Unforeseen? Development and Evaluation of a Methodology

Abstract

Several serious incidents are unforeseen to organizations, companies and actors when they occur. Organizations as well as individuals are challenged by continuous threats, accidents and unforeseen events. Unforeseen events have other characteristics than events that can easily be predicted based on historical data and experience. This paper describes the data collection concept Methodology for handling the unforeseen (UN-METH), developed within the Strategic Institute Initiative at IFE(Institute For Energy Technology), IO-EPO(Integrated Operations-Emergency Preparedness Organization), and uses the insight about the nature of the unforeseen developed through the Norwegian basic research and book project “Pedagogy for the unforeseen". UN-METH consists of two different approaches: UN-CAF (Unforeseen Competence Assurance Framework), where an organization’s preparedness plans are analyzed to determine to what extent they are considering the unforeseen, and UN-ORG (UNforeseen Organization questionnaire).