Allocate, Assign and Prioritise: Who Is Doing What When It Matters

The Idea

A bridge team has a few things to share: attention, hands, time, information and rest. Allocation is deciding who does what. Assignment is making it explicit and saying it aloud. Prioritisation is deciding what comes first when there is not enough. The test is simple: at the busiest ten minutes of the day, does anyone have two jobs that cannot both be done?

The classic failure is the lookout who is also the paperwork, or the navigator who is also on the radio.

The Case

IMCA SF 01/24. A workboat carried two maintenance teams between wind turbines. The master set a slow speed, steered by hand between the turbines and completed paperwork at the chart table. He lost track of time and did not keep a lookout. The mate was on the aft deck doing familiarisation training and the crew member was busy elsewhere, so nobody was watching ahead. At about 5 knots, with the autopilot off, the boat turned slowly to starboard and its bow struck a tower; a crew member broke two ribs. The MAIB’s advice: if paperwork must be done, another crew member keeps a lookout, and review the administrative burden.

Also see: Exxon Valdez (a single officer on the bridge without the lookout redundancy normally expected), and overload and underload.

Why This Principle Exists

Most bridge teams do not fail because nobody was competent. They fail because the right person was not doing the right job at the right moment. A bridge team has a fixed pool of attention, hands, time, information, equipment and rest. Every task draws on that pool. When demand goes above supply and nobody has decided what gives way, something gives way by accident, and it is usually the quiet, unglamorous job: the lookout, the cross-check, the second pair of eyes on the chart.

The STCW competence tables name this principle first for a reason. The other four (communication, leadership, awareness, team experience) all depend on having the right people free to do them.

Three Different Failures With Three Different Fixes

‘Resource management’ is really three skills, and teams tend to fail at one of them:

The workboat case above is an assignment failure. Everyone on board was busy and competent. Nobody had been told that the forward lookout was theirs.

A Role Map You Can Adapt

Write the roles for each phase of the passage, not for the voyage as a whole. A simple version looks like this. The point is that every cell has a name in it, and that no name appears twice in the busiest phases.

Spotting A Person Holding Two Jobs

These are the common doubles that look efficient and are not. Check your own bridge against them.

• The lookout who is also the paperwork (as in the workboat case).
• The navigator who is also on the radio or telephone while a vessel is closing.
• The con who is also doing the plot or arguing with the pilot about the plan.
• The OOW alone on the bridge who is also the lookout, the plotter, the radio and the one who should be calling the Master.
• The Master who is also the second pair of eyes and the one who needs one.
• The DPO who is also acknowledging alarms and talking to the deck.

A Drop List: Deciding What Gives Way

Prioritisation is easy to agree on a quiet watch and almost impossible in the middle of an emergency. So decide in advance. A drop list names what you will let go, in order, when the workload spikes, and who will be told.

1. Routine logging and paperwork: after the manoeuvre, written up from notes.
2. Non-urgent calls and emails: the Master says “not now” and says when.
3. Tours, familiarisation and training on the bridge: paused.
4. Routine reports that can wait: held.
5. Never dropped: the lookout, the cross-check of the primary position, the communication line with the engine room and the Master, and the right of anyone to say stop.

When you start using the drop list, say so out loud: “We are at the narrow part. All non-essential calls are on hold. I need the lookout and the monitor only.” Saying it is what turns it from a private decision into a team decision.

Early Warning Signs Of Task Saturation

Learn to see the signs in yourself and in others before something is missed.

• Tunnel vision: attention fixed on one display or one target.
• Shortened, clipped speech; missing read-backs.
• Tasks started and not finished.
• A growing queue of things “I will do in a moment”.
• Silence from a team member who normally speaks.
• Irritation at interruptions that are actually useful information.

The countermeasure is a sentence, not a heroic effort: “I am full. I need you to take the radio.” A team that treats that as normal is safer than one that treats it as weakness.

Pause and decide at each step before reading on:

1. Who takes the con, who takes the lookout, who takes the VHF, and who plots the fishing vessels? Say the names.
2. The agent calls the Master again. Do you take it? What goes on the drop list, and who will be told?
3. The pilot boards and wants to discuss the berth while the fishing vessels are 1.5 miles off the bow. Who has the lookout for them while the Master and pilot talk?
4. The OOW realises they have taken the radio, the logging and the lookout again. What is the one sentence they say, and to whom?

Debrief. There is no single right answer, but a good team ends the scenario with every task named against one person, the pilot exchange held after the traffic is dealt with or with a named person watching it, and a Master who has said out loud what is on hold. A team that did all this in its head, without saying it, has not yet assigned anything.

Check Your Own Bridge

Answer honestly. Any ‘no’ or ‘not sure’ is something to fix, not something to hide.

• Can everyone on the bridge say who has the lookout right now?
• Do we write down roles for the busiest phases of the passage before they begin?
• Do we have a drop list, and does everyone know it?
• Is it normal on this ship for someone to say “I am full”?
• Do we protect rest as a resource, or do we treat it as spare time?

Questions For A Team Discussion

Use these in a pre-departure brief, at a safety meeting, or over a coffee in the middle of the night watch.

1. Think of the busiest ten minutes of your last voyage. Who had two jobs?
2. What did your team drop first, and did you decide that or did it happen?
3. What is the smallest change to your pre-arrival brief that would make roles explicit?

Key Takeaways

• Allocation, assignment and prioritisation are three different skills.
• If it is not said aloud, it has not been assigned.
• Decide what gives way before the workload spikes, and tell the team when you start.
• Rest is a resource. Fatigue is a resource failure.
• The lookout is not the thing you drop.

Try This On Your Next Watch

Write down the two busiest ten minutes of your next voyage (a pilot boarding, a narrow channel, a crossing). Beside each, list every task and who does it. Find anyone with two jobs. Reassign, or decide in advance what will be dropped first and who will be told.

Test Your Knowledge

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Related Reading

• Exxon Valdez
• Seven IMCA Safety Flashes about the bridge team

Module 2: Say It, Repeat It, Confirm It →