A lot of time, effort and money goes into successful training exercises. Are you maximizing your efforts to get the greatest return on your work? This article will be dealing with large multi-agency exercises, not smaller-scale exercises involving only a few local agencies.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) uses a building block approach to the size and complexity of exercises. “Exercises” are when multiple agencies are participating and objectives are being tested, while “drills” are single-task events, such as learning to use a new piece of equipment or holding firearms qualifications.
A Comprehensive Exercise Program (CEP) is based on the building block principle, with each subsequent exercise building in scope and complexity on the one prior, using the knowledge gained from past events. Exercises can vary greatly in purpose, size and cost, which are some of the reasons that the exercises have to be carefully planned and not just thrown together as something to do.
Exercises are broken down into two primary groups: discussion-based and operations-based exercises. They differ as their names imply. Discussion-based exercises deal with the incident being talked about, without any equipment or personnel being activated. Operations-based exercises are just that–personnel and assets are mobilized as if it were a real world event.
Discussion-Based Exercises are:
- Seminars: This is an informal orientation format that is low stress and is for informational purposes. It is used to provide information on a new piece of equipment or policy. It could be conducted in a classroom or meeting room. Usually there is no hands-on by the attendees.
- Workshops: A formal discussion exercise, led by a presenter to develop a product for later use.
- Tabletop Exercises: This exercise is conducted in a stress-free environment where key players from the different agencies and organizations, along with local governing officials, talk and discuss how they would respond and handle the given situation. It is designed so possible issues and conflicts can be discovered and addressed.
- Games: This is a simulation of a real event using existing policies and procedures to see how they would work in a real event.
Operation-Based Exercises are:
- Drills: This is an organized, directed exercise used to practice a single task or piece of equipment. It involves an actual hands-on use of the equipment or skill.
- Functional Exercises: This is a fully simulated exercise that validates the plan or the capabilities of the participating organizations. It usually is conducted in a real Emergency Operations Center (EOC) or a similar location. It attempts to create a real world environment and the stress that goes with it, without actually mobilizing any personnel or equipment in the field.
- Full-Scale Exercises: This is a high-stress exercise that mobilizes equipment and personnel in the field to a simulated event. Depending on the scope of the exercise it can involve many different agencies and levels of government.
As you can see in the above examples, each of the exercises builds upon the one before it.
Another key component of the exercise program is realizing that it is a multi organization operation, not one that a lone agency can usually complete successfully. A multi-agency approach is needed to show the public that all agencies can work together; a large exercise takes a lot of planning between the participating agencies and has to be coordinated from the start. The assistance from other agencies is also needed to plan what the objectives of the exercise are, as well as setting the budget for the exercise and who will be paying for what.
In order to maximize the effort put into large-scale exercises, the DHS has created the Training and Exercise Plan Workshop (TEPW) meetings. These meetings are conducted on a regional basis for the purpose of coordinating the large-scale exercises that are being planned over the next five years. Once the initial five-year plan is established, it then reverts to being updated on an annual basis, building on the other four years already planned.
At the TEPW meetings, major Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program (HSEEP) -compliant agencies from the region get together and plan out their exercise schedules. These agencies discuss what types of exercises they are planning and when they are scheduled. If two adjacent agencies are going to be conducting the same type of exercise, their resources might be combined. This helps prevent the duplication of the same type of scenario, such as a major train accident with a haz-mat release and not exercising other types of incidents.
Another objective of the TEPW meeting is to help prevent exercise burnout, resulting from too many exercises in too short a period of time. The result can be a real savings in money for the organizations involved.
To assist in the proper planning and conducting of exercises, the DHS has created HSEEP, providing policy and guidance for conducting exercises. HSEEP-compliant exercise ue Exercise Evaluation Guides (EEGs) to have a consistent and objective data collection tool for the recording of observations. Another tool is an After Action Report (AAR). This is used to document the exercise, record lessons learned and complete an Improvement Plan (IP).
All of this information can readily be obtained online and without any cost. There is no need to go it alone when you are putting together your exercise program.