Connecting the Dots - What We Can All Learn from the Flight of NW 253

Had it not been for the bravery of a quick-thinking passenger and a malfunctioning detonation device, 300 people on Northwest Flight 253 would have perished in mid-air on Christmas Day, leaving virtually no clues behind.

As it is, President Obama has ordered a top-to-bottom review to discover how it was that a 23-year-old Nigerian man whose activities has raised so many red flags along the way could have eluded so many systems intended to prevent the kind of terrorist attack Mr. Abdulmutallab very nearly got away with.

This alarming failure to detect and prevent another major terrorist attack in the U.S. inspired me to reflect on the implications and lessons learned for organizations that rely on interconnected entities that need to operate as a unified virtual team. For this anti-terrorist security system to work as it should have, many disparate entities, both within the U.S. and outside, needed to collaborate closely for the whole system to work. In this edition, I explore how we may be able to learn from some of the shortcomings cited for this breakdown.

Sharing vital information: Several different organizations possessed certain pieces of information about the comings and goings of the would-be bomber, but no single organization was able to create a complete picture of just how dangerous Mr. Abdulmutallab really was. Did some organizations hoard the information they had? Or did they regard the knowledge they had as insufficiently important? Or perhaps the process of sharing information was simply too complex or onerous. We may never know the real reason. What we do know is that for a complex and interconnected system to work, organizations need to agree on a predictable, consistent way to pool their respective knowledge. Knowing in advance which knowledge is most critical to share is also vital. With no way to prioritize information, it becomes burdensome and time-consuming to convert an influx of data into meaningful knowledge.

Connecting the dots: It's one thing to have the all the dots laid out in front of you. It's another matter to have the wherewithal to see important patterns among those seemingly interconnected dots. In the case of NW Flight 253, it is not clear who, exactly, should have been in charge of taking those proverbial dots and creating a big picture which, we hope, would have led to warnings across all of the organizations that unwittingly made it possible for a man with dangerous chemicals to board a plane headed to the U.S. As one journalist pointed out, "It is incredible and frightening that the government cannot do at least as good a job at swiftly updating and correlating information as Google." Assuming that all entities have a way to share and sift through relevant information, someone must be responsible for connecting the dots and making decisions about what to do when an alarming pattern emerges.

Sounding the alarm: In this case, no one organization seemed to believe that the information it possessed about this young man was sufficiently troublesome to alert other organizations that might have prevented this young man from boarding NW 253. For example, Mr. Abdulmutallab's father reported his concern about his son's increasing radicalization to a CIA official at the American Embassy in Nigeria, a warning that should have immediately resulted in a revocation of his visa and placement on the "do not fly" list, at a minimum. Yet somehow it did not. Organizations that depend on each other to achieve shared goals, especially when they report up through different channels, need to agree on what kind of information constitutes a real alarm, when those alarms need to be sounded, across which organizations, with what sense of urgency, and what corresponding actions must be taken as a result.

Discovering the root cause: In the case of such a visible and terrifying failure of an entire system, it's imperative to discover what went wrong and why. At the same time, it's equally important to avoid pointing fingers at any single person or group for what is in fact a systemic failure. Representatives from all involved organizations need to come together to examine the probable causes, without judgment or blame, and must agree on new processes and procedures that can help avoid such an incident from ever taking place again. Turf wars and politicization must have no place in these discussions.

Taking sensible action: We may never know exactly what actions are being taken behind the scenes to help prevent another terrorist activity like this one. What we do know is that in these first few weeks following the incident is that some questionable airline rules have been put into place as a result. For example, passengers on many flights entering the U.S. are no longer allowed to alight from their seats or use pillows or blankets within one hour of landing, apparently because this is when Mr. Abdulmutallab attempted to light his bomb. While the response to serious threats or problems should be swift, they also need to be reasonable. It can take some trial and error to determine the remedies most likely to stave off future problems, versus kneejerk reactions that penalize others when it's not necessary.

Putting more stock in the unique power of the human brain: Despite even the most well-funded, sophisticated and ostensibly powerful technology systems, only the human brain can consider the myriad factors and make the kind of nuanced decisions needed to successfully lead any kind of complex effort. Well-designed and tightly-integrated information systems might have helped to prevent the incident on Flight 253. However, what may have been neglected at great peril was the need to provide people with the skills to thoughtfully convert information into knowledge that could be applied to make intelligent decisions.

Three hundred people (and their loved ones, friends, neighbors and colleagues) were extraordinarily lucky to have survived the botched bombing on Christmas Day, considering what might have happened. The system, which many had thought was working like a well-oiled machine, was proven to be broken. Fortunately, this scary discovery did not require the loss of lives. Let's hope that all of us can draw important lessons from this near-miss to build better systems of all kinds in the future.

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