Tag POETE

Measuring Return on Investment Through Key Performance Indicators

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager 1 Comment

Return on investment (ROI) is generally defined as a measurement of performance to evaluate the value of investments of time, money, and effort. Many aspects of preparedness in emergency management offer challenges when trying to gauge return on investment. Sure, it’s easy to identify that m number of classes were conducted and n number of people were trained, that x number of exercises were conducted with y number of participants, that z number of plans were written, or even that certain equipment was purchased. While those tell us about activity, they don’t tell us about performance, results, or outcomes.

More classes were conducted. So what?

We purchased a generator. So what?

The metrics of these activities are easy to obtain, but these are rather superficial and generally less than meaningful. So how can we obtain a meaningful measure of ROI in emergency preparedness?

ROI is determined differently based on the industry being studied, but fundamentally it comes down to identifying key performance indicators, their value, and how much progress was made toward those key performance indicators. So what are our key performance indicators in preparedness?

FEMA has recently began linking key performance indicators to the THIRA. The Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment, when done well, gives us quantifiable and qualifiable information on the threats and hazards we face and, based upon certain scenarios, the performance measures need to attain certain goals. This is contextualized and standardized through defined Core Capabilities. When we compare our current capabilities to those needed to meet the identified goals (called capability targets in the THIRA and SPR), we are able to better define the factors that contribute to the gap. The gap is described in terms of capability elements – planning, organizing, equipping, training, and exercises (POETE). In accordance with this, FEMA is now making a more focused effort to collect data on how we are meeting capability targets, which helps us to better identify return on investment.

2021 Emergency Management Performance Grant (EMPG) funding is requiring the collection of data as part of the grant application and progress reports to support their ability to measure program effectiveness and investment impacts. They are collecting this information through the EMPG Work Plan. This spreadsheet goes a long way toward helping us better measure preparedness. This Work Plan leads programs to identify for every funded activity:

  • The need addressed
  • What is expected to be accomplished
  • What the expected impact will be
  • Identification of associated mission areas and Core Capabilities
  • Performance goals and milestones
  • Some of the basic quantitative data I mentioned above

This is a good start, but I’d like to see it go further. They should still be prompting EMPG recipients to directly identify what was actually improved and how. What has the development of a new plan accomplished? What capabilities did a certain training program improve? What areas for improvement were identified from an exercise, what is the corresponding improvement plan, and how will capabilities be improved as a result? The way to get to something more meaningful is to continue asking ‘so what?’ until you come to an answer that really identifies meaningful accomplishments.

EMPG aside, I encourage all emergency management programs to identify their key performance indicators. This is a much more results-oriented approach to managing your program, keeping the program focused on accomplishing meaningful outcomes, not just generating activity. It’s more impactful to report on what was accomplished than what was done. It also gives us more meaningful information to analyze across multiple periods. This type of information isn’t just better for grant reports, but also for your local budgets and even routine reports to upper management and elected officials.

What do you think about FEMA’s new approach with EMPG? What key performance indicators do you use for your programs?

© 2021 Timothy Riecker, CEDP

Emergency Preparedness Solutions, LLC®

A Few Thoughts on Emergency Planning

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager 3 Comments

A conversation I find myself having fairly often is about people not using plans. It’s amazing that we invest so much time, money, and effort into building plans to never see them used, even if the opportunity presents itself. Why is this? I see four primary reasons:

1. People don’t know the plans exist. There is really no excuse for this one. I find it shameful and wasteful, especially if these people are identified as action agents within that plan. There was practically no point in even developing the plan no one knows about it and their respective roles identified within. Socialization of plans once they are developed is extremely important. Minimalist effort can be made by simply sending the plan or a link to the plan, but I consider this to be inadequate as many people will dismiss it, never get to reviewing it, or not understand what they are reading. Structured briefings are the best way to initially familiarize people with the plans and their roles. It helps to have refresher training as well as ensuring that new hires are similarly trained. This can even be done as a recorded presentation or webinar, though providing a contact for questions is important. Along with socializing, remember the importance of exercises, not only to validate plans but also to help people become more familiar with plans their respective roles by taking a scenario-drive dive into the content. Does everyone in your organization or jurisdiction who has a role in a plan know about it?

2. People don’t remember the plans exist. This one is a bit more forgivable, especially for newer plans, rarely implemented plans, or for personnel who are used to “doing things the way they’ve always been done”. Still, I find these excuses to be weak at best. People’s inability to remember the plans, even granting them the distraction of the incident itself, means that the plans haven’t been socialized and reinforced enough (see item 1 above).

3. People don’t care if the plans exist. This one has been underscored considerably over the past year related to pandemic plans, point of distribution (POD) plans, and other related plans. We’ve seen many senior leaders and elected officials be completely dismissive of established plans, choosing instead to “do it their way” in an effort to exert greater control or to ensure that their name is front and center. Since this one involves a lot of ego, particularly of senior leaders and elected officials, it can be difficult to work around. That said, this underscores the importance of ensuring that elected officials and newly appointed senior leaders are adequately briefed on the existing plans when they take office, and given confidence in the plans and the people identified to implement them, as well as the important roles of elected and appointed officials.

4. People think the plans are faulty. This option is the likely more well-intentioned version of #3, where people are intentionally not using the plan because they feel (maybe true, maybe not) the plan is inadequate and feel that “winging it” is the better option. Part of this lack of confidence may be unfamiliarity with and/or validation of the plans (see item 1 above re socialization and exercises). This could be a difference of opinion or even something intentionally obstructionist. Along with socialization and exercises, I’ll also add the value of including key people in the planning process. This gives them a voice at the table and allows their input to be heard and considered for development of the plan. While you can’t include everyone in the planning process, consider that the people you do choose to involve can serve as representatives or proxies for others, especially if they are well respected, giving less reason for others to push back.

A separate, but somewhat related topic (mostly to #4 above) is about people being often dismissive of or lacking confidence in plans by expressing the saying of “No plan survives first contact with the enemy”. This saying is credited to nineteenth century Prussian military commander Helmuth van Moltke. We see this saying tossed around quite a bit in various circles, including emergency management. While I understand and respect the intent of the phrase, I don’t think this necessarily holds true. I’ve seen great plans fail and mediocre plans be reasonably successful. Why? Circumstances dictate a lot of it. Implementation as well (this is the human factor). What we need to understand is that plans provide a starting point and hopefully some relevant guidance along the way. If a plan is so detailed and rigid, it is more likely to fail. So should our plans not be detailed? No, we should put as much detail as possible into our plans as these will help guide us in the midst of the incident, especially if certain activities are highly technical or process-oriented; but we also need to allow for flexibility. Consider a plan to be a highway. Highways have exits which take us off to different places, but they also have on-ramps to help us return. A deviation from a plan does not mean we throw the plan away, as we can always get back onto the plan, if it’s appropriate. It’s also smart to build in options, as possible, within our plans to help minimize deviations. 

How we develop plans is strongly related to step 2 of CPG-101, and that is “Understand the Situation”. Without an understanding of the situation, we can’t account for the various factors involved and may not account for the circumstances for which we must develop contingencies or options. And while this assessment is part of the planning process, as well as training, exercises, and other facets of preparedness, I feel that a wholistic assessment also has value. I’ve written a lot about the POETE preparedness elements and have begun advocating for APOETE, with the A standing for Assessment. This assessment is broad based to help guide our overall preparedness activity but is not a replacement for the element-specific assessments.

My last thought is about pandemic and POD plans. I’m curious about who has used their plans during this pandemic, and if not, why not? Of course many of the assumptions we used for pandemic planning weren’t realized in this pandemic. Does this mean our pandemic plans were faulty? Not entirely. Clearly there should have been many content areas that were still useful, and even though some of the assumptions we had didn’t apply to this pandemic, they may still hold true for future public health emergencies. We’ve also learned a lot about our response that needs to be considered for plan updates, and we need to weigh how much of the reality of political blundering we should account for in our plans. In the end, what I caution against is developing a pandemic plan that centers on the COVID-19 pandemic. Preparing for the last disaster doesn’t necessarily prepare us for the next one.

Those are some of my thoughts for the morning. As always, I welcome your thoughts and feedback.

© 2021 Timothy Riecker, CEDP

Emergency Preparedness Solutions, LLC®

EOC Toolkit: National Comment Period

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager 2 Comments

Yesterday FEMA’s National Integration Center distributed notice of a national engagement period on two new Emergency Operations Center (EOC) related documents: EOC References and Resources Tool and the EOC How-To Quick Reference Guide. This seems to be the initiation of an EOC Toolkit, which I conceptually think is a great idea. My first impression of these documents is that they both have good information and are logically organized. The documents are good, but I’m also not particularly impressed by them.

First up is the EOC References and Resources Tool. The document indicates that the audience is ‘EOC leaders and staff’, and the intent is to provide them with ‘a set of best practices, checklists, references, links, and essential guidance related to EOC operations and administration’. This is a two-page document, seemingly formatted for printing (It’s a PDF), but mostly useless in print form as it has an abundance of internet links to sites and documents which provide much more information. The document itself isn’t really a ‘tool’, per se. It doesn’t have, on its own, any intrinsic utility other than referring you to other sources of information. While the description indicates that this document has checklists, it does not, though several of the documents linked from this document do have checklists. The center of the first page provides a link to the EOC Toolkit website, but it’s not particularly highlighted. To be honest, I think this document should, in essence, be the format and content of the EOC Toolkit site.

The second document is the EOC How-To Quick Reference Guide. This is an 80 page document. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything labeled a ‘quick reference guide’ be that long. If anything, the EOC References and Resources Tool document (discussed previous) is really the ‘quick reference guide’, while this document is more of a ‘tool’. There is solid information in this document, nothing that from a quick review I have any quarrel with. The content areas are fairly comprehensive, giving information on hazard, vulnerability, and capability assessment; EOC site selection; EOC capabilities and physical design; information management; and preparedness. That said, it doesn’t give you much content within any of the topic areas. It almost feels like a literature review.

As with the other document, this document is formatted for printing, but is full of hyperlinks to sites that expand greatly on the information provided. So it’s not really anything I would recommend printing and putting in a binder. Electronically, it does make it a good compendium of resources, but with how rapidly things change and the frequency of new sources of good information becoming available, I think this document is also best organized as a website that can be updated in real time as new information comes available. As soon as one link changes, the document becomes obsolete. That said, the resources they link to are all good and worthwhile. An attachment to this document provides a fairly comprehensive EOC self-assessment tool; though the tool doesn’t really address partially or fully virtual EOC operations and remote access; and while it goes to an extent of detail asking about certain things (such as a helicopter landing pad), it completely misses some functional things (such as dry erase boards) and is far from comprehensive in the realm of security.

As with most national comment periods, the NIC has provided the documents (though without numbered lines) and a comment form. These, along with information on webinars they are conducting, are posted here: https://www.fema.gov/media-collection/emergency-operations-center-eoc-toolkit-how-quick-reference-references-and-tools.

All in all, I feel like these documents hit the outer ring of a dart board. They are fine, but not really close to the bullseye. It seems these were assembled by a NIC employee or consultant who has spent little to no time in an EOC, much less having any role in the design or preparedness activities for an EOC. As I mentioned earlier, they feel a lot like a literature review – providing a summary of sources but themselves providing very little information. Not that that’s a bad thing – but I’d rather see this in a website format.

What are your thoughts on the documents? 

© 2020 Timothy Riecker, CEDP

Emergency Preparedness Solutions, LLC®

Integrating Emergency Management in Local Government

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager Leave a comment

I think we’re all pretty familiar with and confident in the ability of typical emergency services organizations to properly and appropriately address ‘routine’ responses – that is, those that last a few minutes to a few hours. It’s the extended operations, those that last many hours, or even into days, weeks, and months that traditional response organizations have difficulty with.

The incidents – generally categorized as Type 3 or higher – have very different dynamics. The requirements of these incidents are different. We can’t just roll our usual response, or even throw everything we have at it at one time. We need to rotate resources. We often need resources which are not used to using. We need to provide close support to our resources. Typical emergency services are practically all Command and Operations. Planning and Logistics, much less Finance, are virtually non-existent in the first responder world. Of course, this applies to not just response, but emergency management activities comprehensively.

A true integration of emergency management is absolutely necessary at the local level. Every jurisdiction should identify, and with the approval of the chief executive, how this will happen. What will the triggers be for this? There should be a recognition that this isn’t about taking anything away from the fire chief or police chief – in fact this is about giving them access to greater resources. These chief officers and the leaders beneath them are expected to be experts at the things they deal with 97% of the time. It needs to be accepted that someone else can help guide them through the other three percent.

Again, this is just within the realm of response. Most agencies have little to no active role in mitigation, recovery, or other emergency management tasks – much less the knowledge to take them on. Granted, some don’t explicitly have those activities as part of their agency’s charter, but all do go beyond response to some extent. Emergency management needs to permeate the activities of every agency. Someone should be thinking about it, coordinating with the jurisdiction’s emergency manager, and advising their own agency’s leadership. Of course, this transcends response; it applies to all phases and mission areas of emergency management, with focal points appropriate to the mission of each respective agency.

Planning

This is one of our biggest gaps in preparedness at the local government level. Sure, some first responder organizations have plans for extended and complex incidents – but how well are the plans written? Are they up to date with contemporary practices? Are leaders at every level familiar with them and ready to implement them? Are these activities exercised? The answers to these questions tend to lean toward the negative.

Organizing

<This point is really the crux of my thoughts on this topic. Properly staffing emergency management functions is a considerable path to success.>

Deliberate planning efforts need to include emergency managers, who must be given proper authority by the chief executive to take action and access needed resources. This also means that to be most effective, an emergency manager should absolutely not be placed within another organization. Absent good and confident leadership from that organization, their actions will almost always result in bias filtered through the leadership of the home organization. The emergency manager, during an extended response, becomes a considerable asset to Command and to the jurisdiction as a whole. While they are not there to assume Command, they are there to coordinate internal and external resources to support Command, as well as being familiar with the plans to an extent Command may not be and to support thinking beyond the initial response.

As mentioned earlier, I also believe that most government agencies should have someone responsible for emergency management in their own agency. For smaller jurisdictions this is likely not going to be a full time job, but with an individual tasked and responsible for emergency management at the agency or department level, that helps ensure proper attention to the matter – across all phases and mission areas. Certainly, mid-sized towns and larger should have less difficulty with this, beyond establishing protocol and incentivizing. We already have common practice in various agencies for personnel that hold certain qualifications, such as fire department personnel becoming paramedics. This is often incentivized with a stipend or an altogether higher rate of pay, along with time being given for maintaining the certification and other related professional development. Think about how effective agencies would be if each had someone responsible for emergency management. As well as benefits to the jurisdiction. And yes, even volunteer EMS and fire departments can do this (I served as the designated ‘crisis and emergency manager’ for a volunteer EMS organization for a period of time).

Training

This needs to cover a broad span of things we might consider training. The softest is more at an awareness level – socializing the plan. Making sure that people are familiar with it to the extent necessary. This isn’t just chief officers and department heads, either. Often, they aren’t the ones who need to have early recognition of a situation’s applicability to plan. This socialization needs to take place all levels of leadership.

Being familiar with a plan isn’t enough, though. Being able to implement the plan is largely contingent on targeted, effective, and persistent training – and certainly beyond the awareness level. What training is needed to implement the plan? Who needs to be trained? To what extent of proficiency?

Exercises

If you follow my blog, you know I’ve written on the benefits, ways, and means of exercising to a considerable extent. ‘nuff said. If not: lots of information here.

Let’s be honest, nothing here is a novel approach. A good number of local jurisdictions (I’ll also include counties and parishes in this definition) already implement some version of this. It certainly is a best practice that a lot of jurisdictions are missing out on. Sure, it takes some work, and proper authority, and meetings, and buy in, and training, and more meetings… but what in our world doesn’t require these things?  I think one disaster should clearly show the benefits of this to any jurisdiction.  It’s interesting though, that despite being aware of other practices, so many jurisdictions are stuck doing the same thing they’ve always done. In many ways we are hurt by tradition, apathy, and indifference as much as any disaster. If jurisdictions aren’t prepared to effectively deal with disasters, how well do you think they will do? This doesn’t even require that much structure change or direct cost – just deliberate action.

© 2020 Timothy Riecker, CEDP

Emergency Preparedness Solutions, LLC®

When the Solution Becomes the Problem

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager Leave a comment

Ever think a problem was fixed just to find that the solution was really more of a problem or a totally different kind of problem. While this can certainly happen in our person lives, I see this happen a lot in my professional life, and I’m sure you do as well. Through my tenure in emergency management, I’ve seen a lot of ill-informed assessments, poorly written plans, misguided training programs, bad hires or contracts, unwise equipment purchases, and exercises that could really be called damaging. Not only is the time, money, and effort put into developing these a waste of time (aside from learning how not to do them), they can have ramifications that cause issues to be solved in the short term or down the road.

Poorly conducted assessments can result in a lot of problems. If the data, the analysis, or conclusions are wrong, this can have considerable consequences if that assessment was intended to inform other projects, such as plans, construction, hazard mitigation efforts, staffing, and more. I’ve seen people point to reports with the assumption that the data was complete, analysis was unbiased, and conclusions are correct, and with something akin to blind obedience. When an assessment is used to justify spending and future efforts, we need to ensure that the assessment is carefully planned and executed. Similarly, we’ve all seen a lot of decisions based on no assessment at all. This can be just as dangerous.

Bad planning is a problem that has always, and I fear will always, plague emergency management. Of course, there are some really stellar plans out there, but they seem to be the exception. There are an abundance of mediocre plans in existence, which I suppose are fine but in the end aren’t doing anyone any favors because while the plans themselves may be fine, they tend not to include much useful information, specifics on procedure, or job aids to support implementation of the plan.

Here’s an example of how disruptive bad plans can be: A few years ago, my firm was hired by a UASI to design, conduct, and evaluate a couple of exercises (one discussion-based, the other operations-based) to validate a new plan written for them by another firm. Being that the exercises were to be based on the plan, I took a deep dive into the plan. I honestly found myself confused as I read. I forwarded the plan to a member of our project team to review and, quite unsolicited, I received a litany of communications expressing how confounded he was by the plan. At the very best, it was unorganized and poorly thought out. The subject matter lent itself to a timeline-based progression, which they seemed to have started then abandoned, which resulted in a scattering of topic-based sections that were poorly connected. After conferring with that team member to develop some very specific points, I approached our client for a very candid conversation. I came to find out that the planning process recommended and established by CPG-101, NFPA 1600, and others, was not at all used, instead the firm who built the plan didn’t confer with stakeholders at all and delivered (late) a final product with no opportunity for the client to review and provide feedback. This is a firm that gives other consulting firms a bad name. Working with the client, we restructured our scope of work, turning the tabletop exercise into a planning workshop which we used to inform a full re-write of the plan, which we then validated through the operations-based exercise.

Having been involved in training and exercises for the entire duration of my career, I’ve seen a lot of ugly stuff. We’ve all been through training that is an epic waste of time – training that clearly was poorly written, wasn’t written with the intended audience in mind, and/or didn’t meet the need it was supposed to. For the uninitiated, I’ll shamelessly plug my legacy topic of ICS Training Sucks. Possibly even worse is training that teaches people the wrong way to do things. Similarly, poorly designed, conducted, and evaluated exercises are not only a waste of time, but can be very frustrating, or even dangerous. Don’t reinforce negative behavior, don’t make things more complex than they are, don’t put people in danger, and DO follow established guidance and best practices. Finally, if you are venturing into unknown territory, find someone who can help you.

Equipment that’s not needed, has different capability than what is needed, is overpurchased, underperforms, undertrained, poorly stored and maintained, readily obsolete, and not used. Familiar with any of this? It seems to happen with a lot of agencies. Much of this seems to stem from grant funding that has very specific guidelines and must be spent in a fairly short period of time. Those who have been around for a while will remember the weapons of mass destruction (WMD) preparedness program that started prior to 9/11 and was bolstered by post-9/11 program funding. The centerpiece of this program was equipment purchases. While there was some good that came from this program, I witnessed a lot of wasted money and mis-guided purchases for equipment that wasn’t needed, for jurisdictions that didn’t need it or couldn’t sustain it, and supporting training and exercises to teach people how to use the equipment and keep them proficient. A lot of this circles back to poor (or non-existent) assessments used to inform these purchases, but the real culprit here is the ‘spend it or lose it’ mentality of grant surges like this. Foundational aspects of this program, such as defined need, sustainability, and interoperability were often skewed or ignored in favor of simply spending the funds that were thrust upon jurisdictions. I really blame the poor structuring of this program at the federal level on the poor implementations I saw and heard of at the state and local levels.

There are so many other examples of poor implementations that cause problems. Poorly built infrastructure, misguided hazard mitigation projects, and even poor responses. In the realm of response, I’ll draw on another example that I was involved in. Large disasters really do need to draw on a whole-community approach, which often leads to agencies who aren’t used to large-scale and long-duration incident operations going in over their heads. In one large disaster, I had been hired to help lead a team assembled to fix just such an occurrence, charged with rescuing a functionally necessary program that had been managed into the ground by a well intentioned but overly bureaucratic agency with high degrees of micromanagement. The time, money, and effort exerted to support saving this program from itself was fairly extensive, and, in implementation, challenging given the layers and nuances created by the agency that built it. In the end, the biggest issues they had were not listening to subject matter experts, some of which were in their own agency, and, ultimately, a failure of executives to deal with very apparent problems.

Most emergency management agencies operate on very slim and limited budgets. Being efficient and effective is of great importance. Don’t waste limited money or limited time of limited staff. Sometimes the things with greatest impact are simple, but if executed poorly the consequences can be high. Think things through and consult the right people. It makes a difference.

©2020 Timothy Riecker, CEDP

Emergency Preparedness Solutions, LLC

It’s Not Too Late To Prepare

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager 1 Comment

The phrase I’ve been using lately when I speak to people has been “It’s not too late to prepare”.  Many people perceive that in the middle of a disaster we are unable to prepare.  Quite the contrary, we have the potential to integrate all of our preparedness steps into a response.  Because we have problems in front of us that need to be addressed, we have an opportunity to continuously improve, ensuring that organizationally we are offering the very best we can. 

There is a reason why there isn’t a mission area for preparedness in the National Preparedness Goal.  This is because preparedness is ongoing.  It’s not a separate or distinct activity.  Rather it is comprised of activities that support all mission areas, no matter when they are actioned.  Preparedness is continuous.

Assessment

Assessment is a key activity within preparedness.  In fact, assessment is foundational in understanding what’s going on.  During a disaster, good management practices dictate that we should be monitoring our response and adjusting as needed.  What exactly should we be monitoring?  Similar to evaluating an exercise, consider the following:

  • What was the effectiveness of deliberate planning efforts? 
    • Were planning assumptions correct?
    • Was the concept of operations adequate in scope and detail? 
    • What was lacking?
    • What worked well?
  • What was the effectiveness of plan implementation?
    • If aspects of plan implementation need improvement, what was the reason for the shortfall?
      • A poor plan
      • Lack of job aids
      • Lack of/poor/infrequent training
      • Lack of practice
      • Lack of the proper resources or capabilities
      • The plan wasn’t followed
  • Did resources and capabilities meet needs?  If not, why?

Planning

While some planning gaps will require a longer time period to address, I’m aware of many jurisdictions and organizations which have been developing plans in the midst of the pandemic.  They recognized a need to have a plan and convened people to develop those plans.  While some of the planning is incident-specific, many of the plans can be utilized in the future we as well, either in the form they were written or adjusted to make them more generally applicable without the specific details of this pandemic.  I’d certainly suggest that any plans developed during the pandemic are reviewed afterwards to identify the same points listed above under ‘assessment’ before they are potentially included in your organization’s catalogue of plans. Also consider that we should be planning for contingencies, as other incidents are practically inevitable.

Training

Training is another fairly easy and often essential preparedness activity which can performed in the midst of a disaster.  Many years ago FEMA embraced the concept of training during disasters.  FEMA Joint Field Offices mobilize with training personnel.  These personnel not only provide just in time training for new personnel or to introduce new systems and processes, but they provide continuing training a variety of topics throughout response and recovery, providing a more knowledgeable workforce.  I’ve seen some EOCs around the country do the same.  Recently, my firm has been contracted to provide remote training for the senior leadership of a jurisdiction on topics such as continuity of operations and multi-agency coordination, which are timely matters for them as they continue to address needs related to the pandemic. 

Exercises

While assessments, planning, and training are certainly activities that may take place during a disaster, exercises are probably less likely, but may, if properly scoped and conducted, still have a place.  Consider that the military will constantly conduct what they call battle drills, even in active theaters of war, to ensure that everyone is familiar with plans and protocols and practiced in their implementation.  Thinking back on new plans that are being written in the midst of the pandemic, it’s a good idea to validate that plan with a tabletop exercise.  We know that even the best written plans will still have gaps that during a blue-sky day we would often identify through an exercise.  Plans written in haste during a crisis are even more prone to have gaps simply because we probably don’t have the opportunity to think everything through and be as methodical and meticulous as we would like.  A tabletop exercise doesn’t have to be complex or long, but it’s good to do a talk through of the plan.  Depending on the scope of the plan and the depth of detail (such as a new procedure, conducting a walk-through of major movements of that plan (that’s a drill) can help ensure validity of the plan and identify any issues in implementation.  While you aren’t likely to go the extent of developing an ExPlan, an evaluator handbook, or exercise evaluation guides (yes, that’s totally OK), it’s still good to lay out a page of essential information to include objectives and methodology since taking the time to write these things down is one more step to ensure that you are doing everything you need for the validation to be effective.  Documentation is still important, and while it can be abbreviated, it shouldn’t be cut out entirely.  It’s also extremely important to isolate the exercise, ensuring that everyone is aware that what is being performed or discussed is not yet part of the response activity.  Evaluators should still give you written observations and documented feedback from participants.  You probably don’t need a full AAR, especially since the observations are going to be put into an immediate modification of the plan in question, but the documentation should still be kept together as there may still be some observations to record for further consideration. 

Evaluation and After Action

Lastly, incident evaluation is something we shouldn’t be missing.  We learn a lot about incident evaluation from exercise evaluation.   I’ve written on it before, which I encourage you to look at, but the fundamentals are ensuring that all actions and decisions are documented, that a hotwash is conducted (or multiple hotwashes to capture larger numbers of people or people who were engaged in very different functions), and that an after action report is developed.   Any incident should provide a lot of lessons learned for your organization, but the circumstances of a pandemic amplify that considerably.  Ensure that everyone in your organization, at all levels, is capturing observations and lessons learned daily.  Ensure that they are providing context to their observations as well, since once this is over, they may not recall the details needed for a recommendation. You may want to consider putting together a short form for people to capture and organize these observations – essentially identifying the issue, providing context, and putting forth a recommendation to address the issue. Don’t forget to encourage people to also identify best practices.  In the end, remember that if lessons learned aren’t actually applied, nothing will change. 

I welcome any insight on how we can continue to apply preparedness in the midst of a disaster. 

Be smart, stay safe, stay healthy, and be good to each other. 

©2020 Timothy Riecker, CEDP

Emergency Preparedness Solutions, LLC

8 Predicted Changes to Emergency Management Post-Pandemic

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager Leave a comment

In public safety we learn from every incident we deal with.  Some incidents bring about more change than others.  This change comes not just from lessons learned, but an effort to apply change based upon those lessons. In recent history, we’ve seen significant changes in emergency management practice come from disasters like the 9/11 terrorist attacks and Hurricane Katrina, with many of the changes so significant that they are actually codified and have led to new doctrine and new practices at the highest levels.  What changes can we expect from the Coronavirus pandemic?

Of course, it’s difficult to predict the future.  We’re also still in the middle of this, so my thoughts may change a month or two into the future.  Any speculation will begin with idealism, but this must be balanced with pragmatism.  Given that, the items I discuss here are perhaps more along the lines of changes I would like to see which I think have a decent chance of actually happening. 

  1. Legislation.  Similar to the aforementioned major disasters, this too will spawn legislation from which doctrine and programs will be derived.  We are always hopeful that it’s not politicians who pen the actual legislation, but subject matter experts and visionaries with no political agendas other than advancing public health preparedness and related matters. 
  2. More public health resources. This one, I think, is pretty obvious.  We need more resources to support public health preparedness, prevention, and detection efforts.  Of course, this begins with funding which will typically be spawned from the legislation mentioned previous.  Public health preparedness is an investment, though like most preparedness efforts, it’s an investment that will dwindle over time if it’s not properly maintained and advanced to address emerging threats and best practices.  Funding must address needs, programs to address those needs, and the resources to implement those programs. 
  3. Further integration of public health into emergency management.  Emergency management is a team sport.  Regardless of the hazard or the primary agencies involved, disasters impact everyone and many organizations and practices are stakeholders in its resolution and can contribute resources to support the resolution of primary impacts and cascading effects.  Despite some gains following 9/11, public health preparedness has still been treated like an acquaintance from another neighborhood. The legislation, doctrine, programs, and resources that we see MUST support an integrated and comprehensive response.  No longer can we allow public health to be such an unfamiliar entity to the rest of the emergency management community (to be clear – the fault to date lies with everyone). 
  4. Improved emergency management preparedness.  Pulling back to look at emergency management as a whole, we have certainly identified gaps in preparedness comprehensively.  Plans that were lacking or didn’t exist at all.  Equipment and systems that were lacking or didn’t exist at all.  People who didn’t know what to do.  Organizations that weren’t flexible or responsible enough.  Processes that took too long.  Poor assumptions on what impacts would be. We can and must do better.
  5. An increase in operational continuity preparedness.  We’ve been preaching continuity of operations/government for decades, yet so few have listened. The Coronavirus pandemic has shown us so many organizations jumping through their asses as they figure it all out for the first time.  By necessity they have figured it out, some better than others.  My hope here is that they learned from their experience and will embrace the concepts of operational continuity and identify a need to leverage what they have learned and use that as a basis for planning, training, exercises, and other preparedness efforts to support future continuity events. 
  6. Further expansion of understanding of community lifelines and interdependencies of critical infrastructure.  This pandemic gave us real world demonstrations of how connected we are, how vulnerable some of our critical infrastructure is, and what metrics (essential elements of information) we should be monitoring when a disaster strikes.  I expect we will see some updated documents from DHS and FEMA addressing much of this. 
  7. More/better public-private partnerships.  The private sector stepped up in this disaster more than they previously ever had. Sure, some mistakes were made, but the private sector has been incredibly responsive and they continue to do so.  They have supported their communities, customers, and governments to address needs they identified independently as well as responding to requests from government.  They changed production.  Increased capacity.  Distributed crisis messages.  Changed operations to address safety matters.  Some were stretched to capacity, despite having to change their business models.  Many companies have also been providing free or discounted products to organizations, professionals, and the public.  We need to continue seeing this kind of awareness and responsiveness.  I also don’t want to dismiss those businesses, and their employees, that took a severe financial hit.  Economic stabilization will be a big issue to address in recovery from this disaster, and I’m hopeful that our collective efforts can help mitigate this in the future. 
  8. An improved preparedness mindset for individuals and families.  Despite the panic buying we saw, much of the public has finally seemed to grasp the preparedness messaging we have been pushing out for decades.  These are lessons I hope they don’t forget. Emergency management, collectively, absolutely must capitalize on the shared experience of the public to encourage (proper) preparedness efforts moving forward and to keep it regularly in their minds. 

In all, we want to see lasting changes – a new normal, not just knee-jerk reactions or short-lived programs, that will see us eventually sliding backwards.  I’m sure I’ll add more to this list as time goes on, but these are the big items that I am confident can and (hopefully) will happen.  I’m interested in your take on these and what you might add to the list.

Be smart, stay safe, stay healthy, and be good to each other. 

© 2020 Timothy Riecker, CEDP

Emergency Preparedness Solutions, LLC

Operational Readiness in Emergency Management

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager Leave a comment

Back in 2017 I wrote a piece on defining operational readiness.  It’s a topic, which, after some recent discussion with a colleague, I think bears revisiting and expanding upon.  Specifically, how we apply it in emergency management, or not.  Readiness is really a final comprehensive perspective of preparedness.  That is, once you have reached a certain level of preparedness, you can be ready, but being prepared doesn’t necessarily make you ready.  Preparedness is generally perceived as an ongoing process, though a state of readiness is typically a snapshot in time.

It struck me that the military tends to have more of a focus on readiness, while emergency management has a focus on preparedness.  While you will find both concepts within the doctrine of emergency management and military, the actual applications are considerably skewed.  After my discussion, I began to wonder why there this difference exists and what we can learn from it.

Having worked a considerable amount with various National Guard elements, I’ve come to highly respect their processes and their endeavor for readiness.  Not that we don’t have similar rigor in emergency management, but the focus seems to be more on the processes of preparedness rather than a state of operational readiness.  Sometimes the differences are so subtle that I have to sit back and think them through, but they are certainly there, and they are meaningful.  Given the military’s focus on operational readiness, they serve as a good source of information, though it needs to be properly filtered for application to emergency management.

As I’ve applied more thought to this, I’ve assembled a refined definition of readiness as it applies to emergency management, that being:

[Readiness is the nexus of benchmark outcomes of preparedness matched with the needs of a specific kind and type of response. A state of operational readiness is achieved when all applicable preparedness benchmarks are met and the organization is willing and able to adequately leverage the resulting capabilities against a corresponding threat or hazard.]

I’ve put together a graphic I think reasonably represents this relationship below.  Readiness is represented by a cloud because, as I explore further in this writing, it is itself rather amorphic and complex.

Readiness

To explain the components of my definition…  Readiness comes from a culmination of outcomes from preparedness activities, but only when each of these outcomes achieves a specific benchmark state.  The achievement of benchmarked preparedness activities define a measure of capability.  These capabilities are associated with a specific threat(s) or hazard(s).  As such, that state of readiness is only applicable to a specific kind (threat or hazard) and type (size and complexity) incident.  To help illustrate my points, here are a couple of examples using field response scenarios:

We can assume that a volunteer fire department is prepared to handle a room and contents fire.  They should have all the elements needed to do so, and in fact, these elements have standards (benchmarks) defined by the NFPA and state fire marshals.  Does this mean they have achieved readiness?  Hopefully yes, but perhaps not.  Given the rather extensive crisis of low membership in volunteer fire departments, the department in question may not have adequate staff to respond to this fire if it occurs, for example, in the middle of a week day.  This gives them a measure of degraded, or even negligible readiness.

Similarly, if we take the same fire department, having accomplished the benchmarks of preparedness for response to a room and contents fire, and even given adequate staff to do so, they may not have a state of readiness to fully address a hazardous materials incident.  While many of the elements of preparedness apply to both types of incidents, there are some critical differences which they would have to overcome to establish a state of readiness for a different type of incident.  Likewise, we could revert back to the room and contents fire and make it bigger – say a fully involved structure fire. While the department might have operational readiness to address the room and contents fire, they may not have the operational readiness to address a structure fire.

I think it’s fair to say that we can be prepared for something without having operational readiness for it.  Years ago, when there was a planetary ‘near miss’ by a meteor, a news outlet contacted our state OEM PIO.  They asked if we had a plan for a meteor strike.  The PIO acknowledged that we didn’t have a plan specific to that, but we did have a comprehensive emergency management plan, through which, and supported by various functional annexes, we were prepared to respond to such an incident and its effects should it occur.  Was the PIO wrong?  Not at all.  Assuming the other elements of preparedness were reasonably in place (and they were), it would be fair to say we were generally ‘prepared for anything’.  Were we ready, however?  Absolutely not.  The operational readiness needs for such an extraordinary, high impact incident are near-impossible to achieve.

When we examine this, it’s important to identify that a state of readiness can wax and wane, based on our ability to apply the identified preparedness measures to the incident in question. Considering the first example of the fire department and the room and contents fire, the department has a state of operational readiness when, as included in the definition I gave, all the preparedness benchmarks are met and they are willing and able to adequately leverage the resulting capabilities against a corresponding threat or hazard.  Changes in capability and/or the willingness or ability to apply those capabilities will result in degradation of readiness.  Depending on the factor in question, it may fully disqualify their readiness, or it may decrease their readiness by some measure.

So why is readiness important?  Readiness is the green light.  If we accomplish a state of operational readiness, we increase our chances of success in addressing the threat or hazard in question.  If we haven’t achieved readiness, we still can obviously be successful, but that success may come at a greater cost, longer period of time, and/or increased error.

How do we achieve readiness?  The current approach we have in emergency management certainly isn’t enough.  While some efforts may culminate in operational readiness, there is, as a whole, a significant lack of focus on operational readiness.  This seems to largely be a cultural issue to overcome.  In general, we seem to have the attitude that preparedness equates to readiness, and that preparedness itself is an end state. Even though we intuitively, and doctrinally, know that preparedness is a cycle, we seem to take comfort in ‘completing’ certain tasks among the preparedness elements – planning, organizing, equipping, training, exercises, and improvement – and then assuming readiness.  Readiness itself is actually the end state, though it is a dynamic end state; one that we can easily lose and must constantly strive to maintain.  To accomplish and maintain operational readiness, it is imperative that we aggressively and rigorously pursue activity in each of the elements of preparedness.  We must also continually monitor our ability to execute the capabilities we are preparing.  That ability, ultimately, is our measure of readiness.

The scale and unit of measuring readiness is something I’m not exploring in depth here (it really warrants its own deliberate effort), but expect to revisit in the future.  I surmise that the factors may be different based upon the various capabilities, and types and kinds of threats/hazards we are trying to address.  We need to examine capability requirements at a granular (task) level to truly assess our current state of readiness and identify what we need to address to increase our readiness.  I also assume that there is a somewhat intangible factor to readiness, one that likely revolves around the human factor. Things like leadership, decision-making, confidence, and ability to improvise. The measure of readiness may also involve certain external factors, such as weather.  The measurement of readiness certainly is complex and involves numerous factors.

I do know that practice is a significant factor in operational readiness.  Earlier I mentioned my experience with the National Guard.  Much of that revolves around exercises, which is one of the best (though not the only) measures of readiness.  Operational military units seem to constantly exercise.  Sometimes small scale, sometimes large.  They exercise different aspects, different scenarios, and different approaches.  It’s the regular repetition that builds competence and confidence, along with identifying shortfalls within the capability such as planning gaps, equipment failures, and the need to anticipate and prepare for certain contingencies.  While we exercise a fair amount in emergency management, we still don’t exercise enough.  I see a lot of people in emergency management leadership develop a complacency and virtually declare that ‘close enough is enough’.  It’s absolutely not enough to exercise a plan or capability once a year, which is something we often see (and often at best).

Preparedness is not something we achieve, it’s something we do; but through it we strive to achieve and maintain readiness.

It’s interesting to note that at the level of federal doctrine, we have a National Preparedness Goal.  We need to recognize that preparedness isn’t the goal – Readiness is.  A possible starting point for change would be the assembly of a blue-ribbon panel, likely by FEMA, to explore this topic and provide recommendations on a unified way ahead for emergency management to recognize the need for operational readiness, including purposeful changes in doctrine and culture to emphasize this desired end state.  We need a solid definition, means of measurement, guidelines for implementation, and an identification of the barriers to success with recommendations on how to overcome them (yep, I already know money and staff are the big ones).

I hope I’ve given some food for thought in regard to readiness.  The simple act of writing this and the bit of associated reading and thinking I’ve done on the topic certainly has me thinking about things differently.  As always, I’m curious to hear your thoughts on operational readiness, what it means to you, and what we can do to achieve it.

© 2020 Timothy Riecker, CEDP

Emergency Preparedness Solutions, LLC®

 

 

 

NEW: 2020 HSEEP Revision

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager 1 Comment

Earlier today FEMA dropped the latest version of the Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program (HSEEP) doctrine.  Doing a quick comparison between this new version and the previous (2013) version, I’ve identified the following significant changes:

  • They replaced the ‘Elected and Appointed Officials’ mentions within the document with ‘Senior Leaders’. This makes sense, since often the elected and appointed officials simply aren’t involved in many of these activities.  The previous terminology is also exclusionary of the private sector and NGOs.
  • The document specifically references the Preparedness Toolkit as a go-to resource.
  • A big emphasis through the document is on the Integrated Preparedness Cycle (see the graphic with this post). The Integrated Preparedness Cycle covers all POETE (Planning, Organizing, Equipping, Training, and Exercising) elements plus Evaluate/Improve.  The graphic also eludes to these activities not necessarily happing in a specific order, as well as the consideration of Preparedness Priorities and Threats, Hazards, and Risks.  Developing a preparedness plan is something I wrote about back in 2016.
  • Integrated Preparedness Cycle
    • Going along with the Integrated Preparedness Cycle, they have done away with the Training and Exercise Plan (TEP) and replaced it with the Integrated Preparedness Plan (IPP), which is developed through input obtained during an Integrated Preparedness Planning Workshop (IPPW). I serious HOPE this shift is successful, as I’ve mentioned in the past how often the training aspect of the TEP was ignored or phoned in.  This approach also does a lot to integrate planning, organizing, and equipping (but ESPECIALLY planning) into the effort.  This is all tied together even more if a jurisdiction has completed a THIRA.  The Integrated Preparedness Cycle and IPP are the things I’m happiest about with the updated document.
  • The new document provides easier to find and read layouts for information associated with exercise types and each of the planning meetings.
  • For years, HSEEP doctrine has suggested (though thankfully not required) an ICS-based organization for exercise planning. I’ve never used this as I found it awkward at best (though I know others often use it and have success in doing so).  The update provides a different suggestion (better, in my opinion) of a functionally organized planning team organization.  Consider that this is still a suggestion, and that you can use it, or a version of it, or an ICS-based one, or anything else you desire.
  • The update provides better delineation between the planning and conduct needs of discussion-based exercises vs those of operations-based exercises. Those of us who have been doing it for a while know, but for those who are new to exercises this should be very helpful.
  • Lastly, the document suggests making corrective actions SMART, as these are really objectives.

FEMA is hosting a series of webinars (listed on the HSEEP website) to discuss these changes.

I’m very happy with the changes made to the doctrine.  It’s a great continued evolution of HSEEP and preparedness as a whole.  For as much as I’m a champion of the Integrated Preparedness Plan, though, having it (thus far) only included in the HSEEP doctrine makes it easy to miss or dismiss by some.  I’m hopeful broader promotion of this concept, perhaps even including it as an emergency management performance grant requirement, will help adoption of this concept.

What are your thoughts?

© 2020 Timothy Riecker, CEDP

Emergency Preparedness Solutions, LLC®

A FEMA Pilot Program? Maybe?

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager Leave a comment

A few days ago, Homeland Security Today posted an article titled FEMA Creates Pilot Program for Long-term Emergency Management.  It seemed intriguing, so I took a look.  The article is pretty much verbatim (no fault of HS Today) from the press release posted by FEMA of the same title (linked to in the article).  Needless to say, I’m confused.

The press release states that FEMA has developed a pilot program to provide free training to local emergency managers across Puerto Rico to better prepare their disaster response capabilities.  There is an out of place name drop of sorts of the Incident Command System in the release, as well as a statement that the trainings ‘aim to improve capabilities of Puerto Rico Bureau of Emergency Management and Disaster Administration staff’, yet earlier the emphasis was on local emergency managers.

The training they are offering is certainly great and wholly appropriate, covering topics such as emergency planning, debris management planning, points of distribution, and threat and hazard identification and risk assessment (THIRA), as well as courses in American Sign Language.  The release also cites a train the trainer course to be delivered, but doesn’t indicate if it is specific to any of these courses or a general instructor development course.

Are you as confused as I am?  Perhaps it’s because the press release is incredibly poorly written, or maybe because this ‘pilot program’ is poorly conceived. A few thoughts…

  • I’m not sure what this is a pilot program of. Aside from the ASL training (which I think is a great addition, though I hope they realize that someone going through one ASL course still isn’t going to know squat, so hopefully it’s more than that) these courses are a regular part of FEMA’s training repertoire, which are typically provided at no charge.
  • While training certainly contributes to increased preparedness, I would have hoped that an area as vulnerable as Puerto Rico would get more than just training. Preparedness, comprehensively, is comprised of planning, organizing, equipping, training, and exercises (POETE), with continued assessments throughout.  Training is absolutely important, and I agree with the premise of supporting activities by teaching people how to do them for themselves.  While I understand that other resources have been provided to PR, especially in the wake of 2017’s hurricane impacts, this release awkwardly isolates the training efforts.
  • I’m still stuck on the mention of ICS in this release. It’s completely out of context, especially since there is no indication of any ICS training being provided.

Perhaps I’m being a bit nit-picky with this, but if you are going to advertise an effort, there are a spectrum of right and wrong ways to do so.  While every organization is flawed, I’m a big fan of FEMA, including many of their training programs (ok… maybe with the exception of ICS training).  Further, as a former State Training Officer, I’m big on needs-driven training and training being part of a comprehensive preparedness program.  It’s certainly very appropriate that FEMA is helping to support and boost preparedness in PR, but this release is either misleading, misinformed, or poorly written.

I know that a lot of FEMA folks, including some from EMI, read my blog.  Can anyone provide some clarification on this?  I’ll be happy to post an update!

– Tim Riecker, CEDP