Tag Tim Riecker

Preparedness Exercises – The Building Block Concept Can Be Misleading

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager Leave a comment

If you’ve been doing emergency management and homeland security exercises for even a little while, you are probably familiar with this graphic.  It’s included in a great many exercise training courses and other materials that talk about the different types of exercises out there.  This graphic looks correct at first glance.  It seems to make sense.  Intuitively, we assume that full-scale exercises are the most complex exercise type and that they test capabilities to the greatest extent.  When we put more thought into that, though, we realize that it can be wrong.

I’m happy to note that the most recent document on the Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program (HSEEP) (April 2013) does NOT include this graphic.  They include a couple of paragraphs on using a ‘progressive approach’ to a multi-year exercise program, recommending that “each successive exercise building upon the previous one until mastery is achieved” is the path forward.  While I’m not too crazy about this statement, either, it’s not as misleading as the legacy ‘building block’ graphic.

Here’s the problem with the graphic – It assumes too much.  While in some instances this graphic can be correct, it shouldn’t be regarded as even occasional guidance.  I’ve witnessed, managed, designed, evaluated, or otherwise participated in a number of workshops, tabletops, drill, and functional exercises that are far more complex than some full-scale exercises I’ve likewise been involved in.  Similarly, I can attest to some ‘lower level’ exercises testing capabilities to a greater extent than the ‘higher level’ exercises.  The hierarchal structure is simply misleading.  The problem this can create is people being dismissive of the relevance, necessity, and value of conducting exercises other than functional and full-scale.

Making a training comparison, exercise types don’t really stick to a scaled taxonomy.  (Check out this article for a small introduction to Bloom’s Taxonomy which is used in instructional design.) While we can state that an awareness level course is more about knowing and understanding, and an operations-level course is more about applying, we can’t say the same for exercises as a spectrum generalization.  Consider that seminars are certainly geared toward orienting people with information, while workshops, on the other hand, require creation of a product, by definition.  Tabletop exercises can (and should) be incredibly in-depth, analyzing plans and policy, while drills are more about application.

So what exercise type should you choose?  It goes back to the foundations of exercise design – consider your objectives, then consider what exercise type best fits what was identified that you want to accomplish.  Reflecting, now, back on the progressive approach mentioned in the HSEEP document, it’s true that you probably don’t want to jump into a full-scale right away.  That has less to do with the perceived complexity of the exercise and more to do with how plans are properly tested – which is the main reason why we exercise.  First, we need to talk through aspects of our plans, policies, and procedures.  We need to make sure that our foundational assumptions are sound and that broader decisions and actions are in line with the documents created.  This is typically the reasoning behind conducting a table top exercise before any type of operations-based exercise.  Once we have established that the foundational premise and supporting policies of the plan is sound, then it can make sense to progress to a selection of operations-based exercises to test various tactile aspects of the plan and associated procedures.

That said, some procedures are so tactile that really the only way to test them is through an operations-based exercise.  Perhaps they are first built in a workshop-type of environment, then go straight to a drill for testing.  That might be all that’s needed.  Yes, they could be further integrated into a functional or full-scale later, if you choose to integrate them into other activities.

The bottom line here is that while the building-block approach to exercises makes sense at a glance, it is really quite more complex than the graphic eludes to.  Yes, it still has some relevance, but it should not be viewed as the rule.  Just as in training and emergency response, objectives drive everything in exercises.

© 2017 – Timothy M Riecker

Emergency Preparedness Solutions, LLC

 

In a POETE State of Mind

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager 2 Comments

One of the searches that has most often brought people to my blog over the last couple of years has been POETE.  In case you forgot, POETE stands for Planning, Organizing, Equipping, Training, and Exercising.  If you conduct an internet search for POETE, there are very few relevant results.  Along with a few of my blog posts, there are a couple of articles published by others, and a few FEMA documents that include obscure references to POETE.  Sadly, there is nothing available that provides (official) guidance, much less doctrine.

Why is it that such a great tool has so few tangible references?  Unfortunately, I don’t have an answer to that.  I hope that will soon change.

POETE was most widely indoctrinated several years ago as an analysis step within the State Preparedness Reports (SPRs), which are annual submissions completed by every state, UASI (Urban Area Security Initiative-funded program), and territory.  Note: The SPR templates and guidance are generally not publicly posted, as they are sent directly to the points of contact for each jurisdiction – thus they generally don’t come up in internet search results.

The SPR is a step beyond the THIRA (Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk Analysis), which is a very in-depth hazard analysis.  The SPR examines each jurisdiction’s level of preparedness for hazards, referencing the 32 Core Capabilities.  Each Core Capability is then analyzed through the lens of POETE.

As a conceptual example, let’s use the Operational Communications Core Capability.  The POETE analysis will examine the jurisdiction’s preparedness by examining:

  • Planning (are plans adequate? Have they been tested?  What improvements need to be made?);
  • Organizing (are there organizational barriers to success? What human operational communications resources are available?  Are there gaps?  Have teams been exercised? What improvements need to be made?);
  • Equipment (does the jurisdiction have equipment necessary for operational communications? What needs are there relative to the resource management cycle?);
  • Training (what training has been provided? What training gaps exist?  When/how will they be addressed?);
  • Exercises (what exercises have been conducted that include the operational communications Core Capability? What were the findings of the AAR/IPs?  What future exercises are scheduled that include this Core Capability?).

Along with answering a few questions on each element, jurisdictions are asked to rate their status for each POETE element for each Core Capability.  If they look at their reports submitted historically, they can see the measure of progress (or lack thereof) with each.  They also have a tracking of identified action items to help them improve their measure of preparedness.

While this analysis can be quite tedious, it’s extremely insightful and informative.  Often, stakeholders have conceptual ideas about the state of preparedness for each Core Capability, but absent conducting this type of in-depth analysis, they rarely see the details, much less have them written down.  Documenting these helps with recognition, awareness, tasking, tracking, and accountability.  It’s a valuable activity that I would encourage all jurisdictions and organizations to conduct.

What else can POETE be applied to?  In the past few years, POETE is being included in DHS preparedness grants.  They often want applicants to identify key tasks within the POETE structure, and awardees to chart progress along the same lines.

I’ve advocated in the past to use the POETE structure in improvement plans, which are a step beyond after action reports from exercises, events, and even incidents.  Having key activities identified across each POETE element for the Core Capabilities analyzed is extremely helpful, and ensures that issues are being identified comprehensively.

Using the POETE concept across all preparedness efforts helps to tie them together.  By documenting each element for each Core Capability, you will have full visibility and reference to your current status and what needs to be improved upon.  It helps drive accountability, a comprehensive approach, and reduces duplication of efforts – especially in larger organizations.  While implementing such a program will take some investment up front to begin to identify, organize, and chart progress and establish an organizational system to do so, I feel it’s an investment that will pay off.

I’m hopeful that the use of POETE continues to see adoption across all of emergency management and homeland security, and that it is further reinforced as a standard through DHS, FEMA, NFPA, and other organizations which hold sway for settings standards and/or requirements.

How does your organization, agency, or jurisdiction use POETE?

© 2017 – Timothy M Riecker, CEDP

Emergency Preparedness Solutions, LLC

Incident Evaluation

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager 4 Comments

I’ve written at length about the importance of quality evaluation of exercises.  Essentially, if we don’t evaluate exercises, and do it well, the benefits of the exercises are quite limited.  Generally, we don’t see a benefit to incidents.  By their very nature, incidents threaten and impact life, property, and environment – things we don’t view as being beneficial.  However, benefits are often a product of opportunity; and we absolutely should take the opportunity to evaluate our responses.

Many incidents do get evaluated, but through research after the fact.  We retrace our steps, review incident documents (such as incident action plans), interview personnel, and examine dispatch logs.  These efforts usually paint a decent picture of intent and result (things that are often different), but often miss the delta – the difference between the two – as well as other nuances.  When we evaluate an exercise, we do so in real time.  Th evaluation effort is best done with preparation.  Our evaluation plans, methodologies, and personnel are identified in the design phase of the exercise.  Just as we develop emergency operations plans and train personnel to respond, we can develop incident evaluation plans and train personnel to evaluate incident responses.

Understandably, a hurdle we might have is the availability of personnel to dedicate solely to evaluation, especially on larger incidents – but don’t be afraid of asking for mutual aid just to support incident evaluation (just be sure to include them in your preparedness efforts).  Just as regional exercise teams should be developed to provide cooperative efforts in exercise design, conduct, and evaluation; incident evaluation teams should be developed regionally.  To me, it makes sense for many of these personnel to be the same, as they are already familiar with how to evaluate and write up evaluations.

In exercises, we often use Exercise Evaluation Guides (EEGs) to help focus our evaluation efforts.  These are developed based upon identified Core Capabilities and objectives, which are determined early in the exercise design process.  While we don’t know the specific objectives we might use in an incident, we can identify these in general, based upon past experiences and our preparedness efforts for future incidents.  Similarly, our emergency planning efforts should be based around certain Core Capabilities, which can help inform our incident evaluation preparedness efforts.  Job aids similar to EEGs, let’s call them incident evaluation guides (IAGs), can be drafted to prepare for incident evaluation, with adjustments made as necessary when an incident occurs.

Evaluating an incident, in practice, is rather similar to how we would evaluate an exercise, which is why the training for these activities is relatively portable.  Evaluation efforts should avoid evaluating individuals, instead focusing on the evaluation of functions and processes.  Don’t reinvent the wheel – evaluate based upon documented (hopefully!) plans and procedures and use the Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program (HSEEP) standards to guide your process. Incident evaluation must be managed to ensure that evaluation gaps are minimized and that evaluation progresses as it should.  Observations should be recorded and, just as we would for an exercise, prepared for and eventually recorded in an after action report (AAR).

I favor honest after action reports.  I’ve seen plenty of after action reports pull punches, not wanting the document to reflect poorly on people.  Candidly, this is bullshit.  I’ve also heard many legal councils advise against the publication of an after action report at all. Similarly, this is bullshit.  If our actions and the need to sustain or improve certain actions or preparations is not properly recorded, necessary changes are much less likely to happen.  If an AAR isn’t developed, a corrective action plan certainly won’t be – which gives us no trackable means of managing our improvements and disavows our intent to do so.

As a profession, public safety must always strive to improve.  We have plenty of opportunity to assess our performance, not just through exercises, which are valuable, but also through the rigors of incident responses.  Prepare for incident evaluation and identify triggers in your emergency plans for when evaluation will be employed, how, and who is involved.  Begin evaluation as early as possible in an incident – there are plenty of lessons learned in the early, and often most critical moments of our incident response.  Finally, be sure to document lessons learned in an AAR, which will contribute to your overall continuous improvement strategy.

How does your agency accomplish incident evaluation?  If you don’t, why?

Need help with the evaluation of incidents?  We are happy to help!

© 2017 – Timothy Riecker, CEDP

Emergency Preparedness Solutions, LLC

Incident Action Planning

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager 1 Comment

Hello readers!  It’s been a couple of months since I’ve last posted – along with the holidays, I’ve been fortunate to be busy with some great projects and a bit of travel.  While I’m still busy, I’ve been itching to get back to posting.

Over the past few months, I’ve had an opportunity to look at some different aspects of incident action planning.  Having worked as a Planning Section Chief for numerous state and federally declared disasters, I’ve created Incident Action Plans (IAPs), part and parcel, for a variety of incidents.  Teaching hundreds of course offerings of ICS and EOC management, I’ve also had a lot of opportunity to help others understand and appreciate the value of an IAP.

What is an IAP?

The Incident Action Plan is really the culmination of the planning process.  It documents our expected actions for the next operational period, which, through that planning process, should be ready to be supported through an identified organization and necessary resources.  It begins, foundationally, with an understanding of the situation and objectives built to solve the problems that situation imposes upon us.  IAPs identify some situational information, the incident objectives, and tactics – which specific resource assignments – to accomplish those objectives.  To support the tactics, additional elements are added to the IAP, such as the organizational structure, a medical plan (for responders), a communications plan, and specific safety messages.  Based upon the unique characteristics of each incident, additional material can be added.

The planning process, and thus IAPs, are a standard of practice within NIMS/ICS.

Issues with Teaching the Planning Process

For those coming up through the ranks, as it were, of ICS training, the forms integrated into ICS are often one of the most frustrating aspects.  Responders want to do the hands-on stuff, not fill out forms.  Most areas and systems, however, are able to find the responders who are interested in becoming involved in incident management aspects, and engage them in formal or ad-hoc incident management teams.

Often the only exposure that responders have to IAPs is from the ICS 300 course, where they are able to see some samples and are walked through the planning process and associated forms of the IAP.   Having taught hundreds of these, I know it’s a challenge*.  We inundate course participants with a pile of forms and expect them to leave the class to go out and do great things.  While it might be a reasonable initial exposure, this needs to be followed up on, practices, and reinforced if we expect anyone to be successful, much less use the system.

*note: if you aren’t familiar with my position on the current state of ICS training, here are a few other blog posts to orient you.  In short… ICS Training Sucks!

The planning process can be confusing – who does what?  When?  Based upon what information?  The Planning P is the best visual out there and incident management handbooks (aka Field Operations Guides or FOGs) are references that every IMT member should have in the utility pocket of their 5.11s.  While all based on the same system, I find the United States Coast Guard to have the best handbook out there.  These are great job aids for something we don’t go to work and do every day, no matter how proficient you might think you are.

planning P for Planning

Uses of IAPs

IAPs can be applied to anything we can/should apply the planning process to.  These include incidents, pre-planned events, and exercises.  Planned events and exercises provide a great opportunity to practice the planning process and development of IAPs.  It is certainly something that requires practice to be proficient.  Every member of the Command and General staff, as well as a number of support positions, have an important role to play and responsibilities to contribute to the planning process.  The forms themselves even require some practice to ensure that the right information is obtained.  Large incidents can also require a great deal of tactical planning, which means greater time for that and for documenting the tactics and necessary support.

One aspect that is often forgotten in the heat of battle is that our response should, ideally, be based on our emergency operations plans (EOPs).  These should be a regular reference to the Command and General staff, as they can, at the very least, provide some general guidance.  Good EOPs, and their associated annexes, should provide some detailed guidance on certain aspects of response, which can prevent the IMT from having to re-invent a plan in the midst of chaos.  The direction of EOPs, to the greatest extent possible, should be referenced in the planning process and reflected in the IAPs.  EOPs should serve as the foundation for the planning process – with that in mind, EOPs can be implementation-ready.  More thoughts on emergency plan development here.

As mentioned, exercises are a great opportunity for participants to practice the planning process and IAP development, along with other facets of ICS – especially those that we don’t get to apply so often.  Also consider, however, the use of an IAP for exercise management.  Our company, Emergency Preparedness Solutions, worked with the State of Vermont this past summer providing exercise control and evaluation services for their Vigilant Guard exercise.  This week-long exercise spanned nearly 60 distinct venues across the state and involved thousands of participants.  We coordinated over 100 control and evaluation staff throughout the exercise.  While staffing decisions were made weeks in advance, we knew that with so many variables, needs and assignments were bound to change.  For each operational period of the exercise, venues had staff assigned, a point of contact they should coordinate with, a need to communicate with the simcell and exercise management staff, a need to be aware of weather and safety matters, and processes to follow in regard to exercise management and reporting.  We recognized the similarities to a tactical deployment and decided to develop incident action plans for exercise management.  We called these eXercise Action Plans (XAPs).  Within just a couple of operational periods, we were receiving great feedback on the documents from exercise staff.  Use of XAPs were identified as a best practice in exercise management for that project.

Final Thoughts

Incident Action Plans are great tools that can help us put our emergency plans in action.  They allow us to apply incident or event-specific ground-truths and the realities of incident needs and resources.  While it’s understanding that some are frustrated with the forms used, the forms are job aids, tested through decades, to help us navigate complex incident management.  When I walk into a command post or an EOC, the IAP is the first thing I look for.  Because the format and forms are relatively standardized, I can flip through it, and in a couple of minutes have a good sense of the activity and who is responsible for what.  Someone told me long ago that ICS is forms facilitated, not forms driven – and that’s very true.  The forms (and thus the IAP) are products of the planning process, which is another decades-old practice in incident management.

What best practices have you seen in the application of the planning process and incident action plans?

Need assistance with planning, training, or exercises?  Emergency Preparedness Solutions can help!

Until next time.

© 2017 – Timothy Riecker, CEDP

 

ICS and the Human Factor

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager 2 Comments

A number of my articles have mentioned the unpredictable human factor in executing emergency plans and managing incidents, particularly for complex incidents.  We can build great plans and have a great management system to facilitate the incident management process, but the human factor – that largely intangible level of unpredictability of human behavior – can steer even the best emergency plan astray or derail an incident management process.

An article published in the Domestic Preparedness Journal yesterday, written by Eric McNulty, reflects on this.  Mr. McNulty cites several human factors which have relevance within incident management and encourages leaders to understand these factors within themselves and others to bring about more effective leadership.  The introductory paragraph of his article suggests the need for integrating behavior training into ICS training to ‘improve performance and outcomes’.  Given the impact of behavior factors on how we respond, this is a concept I can certainly endorse for a much-needed rewrite of the ICS curriculum.

I’ve heavily referenced Chief Cynthia Renaud’s paper, The Missing Piece of NIMS: Teaching Incident Commanders How to Function in The Edge of Chaos, in the past and continue to hold her piece relevant, especially in this discussion.  Chief Renaud’s suggestions draw lines parallel to behavioral factors, which suggest to me that we certainly need to integrate leadership training into ICS training.  The current ICS 200 course attempts to do so, but the content simply panders to the topic and doesn’t address it seriously enough.  We need to go beyond the leadership basics and explore leadership training done around the world to see what is the most effective.

Incident management is life and death – not a pick-up game of stick ball.  Let’s start taking it more seriously and prepare people better for this responsibility.

© 2016 – Timothy Riecker, CEDP

Emergency Preparedness Solutions, LLC – Your Partner in Preparedness

Do We Need Different Systems for Catastrophic Incidents?

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager 2 Comments

We’ve long heard, albeit in small pockets, people proclaiming that emergency management and public safety need different systems for larger incidents vs smaller incidents.  For years, the Incident Command System (ICS) fought that stigma, with many saying that ICS is only used for hazardous materials incidents (specifically because of OSHA requirements) or for large incidents that required such a high degree of organization.  Following the release of HSPD-5 and the resultant requirements for everyone to use the National Incident Management System (NIMS), we finally seemed to transcend that mentality – although we are still seeing people apply ICS poorly, and often with the thought that it will all work out fine when a large incident occurs.

Since the mid-2000s, coupled with the push for ‘catastrophic planning’, I’ve been hearing people proclaiming that catastrophic incidents require different systems – be it for planning or management.  Recently, I’m hearing this mentioned again.  Yet, interestingly enough, none of the arguments identify specifically what it is about our current systems of preparedness or incident management that fail at the sight of a catastrophic incident.

While I’m a critic of various aspects of our current systems, I’m a believer in them overall.  Do we need a new system of planning?  No, we just need to do it better.  When we plan for a catastrophic level event, we must consider that NOTHING will work in the aftermath of such an incident.  I’m shocked that some people are still counting on the existence and functionality of critical infrastructure following a catastrophic event.  No roads, no communications, no life lines.  These surprised disclosures are revealed in the After Action Reports (AARs) of incidents and exercises that test catastrophic incidents, such as the recent Cascadia Rising exercise.

Fundamentally, are these losses all that different than what we experience in smaller disasters?  Not so much.  Smaller disasters still take out our roads and disable our communications systems – but such disasters are small enough that we can work around these issues.  So how is it a surprise that a large hurricane or earthquake will do even more damage?  It really shouldn’t be.  It’s essentially a matter of scale.

That said, I certainly acknowledge the difficulties that come with the combined impacts of a catastrophic disaster, coupled with the sheer magnitude of it all.  There are challenges offered that we don’t normally see, but a new system of planning is not the answer.  The current frameworks and standards, such as CPG-101 and NFPA 1600 are absolutely substantial.  The processes are not flawed.  The issue is a human one.  We can’t blame the standards.  We can’t blame the plans.  The responsibility lies with the people at the table crafting the plan.  The responsibility lies with them to fully understand the hazards and the potential impacts of those hazards.  Conducting a hazard analysis is the first step for a planning team to accomplish, and I think this is often taken for granted.  While the traditional hazard analysis has value, the current standard is the Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment (THIRA).  It is an exhausting and detailed process, but it is highly effective, with engaged teams, to reveal the nature and impacts of disasters that can impact a community.  Without a solid and realistic understanding of hazards, including those that can attain catastrophic levels, WE WILL FAIL.  It’s that simple.

As we progress through the planning process and identify strategies to accomplish objectives, alternate strategies must be developed to address full failures of infrastructure and lack of resources.  Assumptions are often made in plans that we will be able to apply the resources we have to fix problems; and if those resources are exhausted, we will ask for more, which will magically appear, thus solving our problems.  Yes, this works most of the time, but in a catastrophic incident, this is pure bullshit.  This assumption needs to be taken off the table when catastrophic incidents are concerned.  The scarcity of resources is an immediate factor that we need to address along with acknowledging that a severely damaged infrastructure forces us out of many of the technological and logistical comforts we have become accustomed to.  It doesn’t require a new system of planning – just a realistic mentality.

This all logically ties to our incident management system – ICS.  ICS is fully able to accommodate a catastrophic-level incident.  The difficulties we face are with how we apply it (another human factor) and integration of multiple ICS organizations and other incident management entities, such as EOCs.  The tenant in ICS is that one incident gets one incident command system structure.  This is obviously not a geo-political or practical reality for a catastrophic incident that can have a large footprint.  This, however, doesn’t mean that we throw ICS out the window.  This is a reality that we deal with even on smaller disasters, where different jurisdictions, agencies, organizations, and levels of government all have their own management system established during a disaster.  Through implementations such as unified command, multi-agency coordination, agency representatives and liaison officers, and good lines of communication we are able to make effective coordination happen.  (Side note: this is absolutely something I think we need to plan for and tighten up conceptually.  It’s often pulled together a bit too ad-hoc for my comfort).

While some time and effort needs to be applied to develop some solid solutions to the issues that exist, I’m confident that we DO NOT need to create alternate preparedness or response systems for addressing catastrophic incidents – we simply need to apply what we have better and with a more realistic perspective.  The answers won’t come easy and the solutions might be less than ideal, but that’s the nature of a catastrophic event.  We can’t expect it to be easy or convenient.

© 2016 – Timothy Riecker, CEDP

Emergency Preparedness Solutions, LLC – Your Partner in Preparedness

EMS is in Trouble

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager 2 Comments

If you’ve worked in or with Emergency Medical Services (EMS) over the past couple of decades, you probably know it’s in trouble in many areas around the nation.  As with many organizations, finances are the culprit.  Many EMS organizations simply can’t make ends meet.  Costs for equipment, insurance, fuel, training, and facilities often can’t be balanced in the black against recovered income.  It’s not to say it can’t be done – some are doing it, and successfully.  But many are having a difficult time.  Staffing is another problem.  Volunteer services must constantly recruit and work to retain staff.  Volunteer fire services are experiencing similar recruitment and retention problems.  Even with diligent efforts, day time coverage in some areas is a challenge while many of these volunteers are working at their primary jobs.  Paid services struggle with staffing as well.  It’s no mystery that EMTs and Paramedics don’t get into this business to make good money.  According to a study posted by Monster, the highest paid states provide pay in the $20-$35/hour range, but it slides quickly, with not only the lowest paying states paying in the teens, but the average also sitting in the teens.  Yep, you could be out saving lives and someone working at McDonald’s makes more money than you do.  It’s a rather depressing valuation.

When you couple these two big factors – volunteer staffing and finances – it gets even more difficult.  Paid and volunteer services alike are kicking calls over to mutual aid providers because of being short staffed, which means they miss revenue, which continues to make matters worse.  Many volunteer EMS services, as well as volunteer fire services, are hiring day-shift staff so they can continue to meet needs in their communities during these more difficult timeframes.  For those of you keeping score at home, that’s more cash out.  It might pay off for a busier provider, but certainly not for a provider whose call volume doesn’t balance the checkbook.  Yes, it continues to provide a service to the community, but it’s not sustainable in the long run.

How are the private paid services doing?  Many aren’t doing so well, either.  We see service areas shrinking all around the nation, with paid services seeing diminishing revenues from less dense population areas.  Quite a few paid services make ends meet from interfacility transfers, which are low cost but require volume to make reasonable revenue.

Municipal services are another category which generally have a poor income statement.  I think it’s great that some municipalities provide EMS transport services.  Financially, these services are underwritten by tax payers, with some cost recovery possible through billing insurance companies.  The costs of most municipal services, however, are generally higher, as EMTs and paramedics are government employees, often unionized, and with benefits.  It’s great for them, but not good for the municipal comptroller.  That said, it’s one of the most sustainable models since the underlying financing is spread across all the jurisdiction’s tax payers.  Still a challenge, though, when you consider the tough financial constraints many jurisdictions are facing.

So what’s to be done?  We will eventually need to see a shift in how EMS is provided across the nation.  It is an absolutely necessary service, just as important as roads, fire protection, or law enforcement.  While we won’t see a sudden change, I believe the way forward will be municipal services, or municipally-funded services (those being private or volunteer, but under contract with one or more municipalities).  EMS, similar to other disciplines in public safety, is a public service, and foundationally will need to be publicly funded in order to sustain.  This is nothing new, as there are a number of EMS providers already following this model – that being the maintenance of a contract with one or more municipalities to provide EMS services, for a fee, while also gaining revenue from third party billing, as well as fees for stand-by services for sporting events and other mass gatherings.

What trends do you see in EMS organizational models where you are?  Are the current models sustainable?  Do you view EMS as a public safety endeavor similar to law enforcement and the fire service?

© 2016 – Timothy M. Riecker, CEDP

Emergency Preparedness Solutions, LLC – Your Partner in Preparedness

 

 

Embracing the Playbook in Emergency Management

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager Leave a comment

This morning I suggested to a client the possible use of a playbook as a training supplement for their duty officer program.  A playbook is a job aid, but more than just a check list or a chart.  Ideally, a playbook is a structured collection of job aids, broken down by situation for easy reference by whomever needs the information.

Playbooks are best known to be most extensively used in American football.  They contain a variety of strategies for accomplishing certain objectives (short yardage gain, long yardage gain, end zone scoring, kick return, etc.), with each strategy often accompanied by one or more diagrams of Xs (the opposition) and Os (your team), with lines showing movement and action by certain positions.  Playbooks are tested, practiced, and memorized by players before the season begins, but are constantly referenced every game by coaches and players alike.

playbook-diagram

Fundamentally, the play book exists because there are so many situations the team needs to respond to and several different ways in which they can respond.  While some of their plays are fairly routine, others are rarely, if ever, used.  Just like emergency management, however, it’s good to have the plan available if we need it.

Assembling a playbook for emergency management purposes doesn’t have any set standard, but as with any other tool or plan we assemble, we must first identify the purpose and the audience.  Play books can be assembled for elected officials and executives, duty officers and middle management, or dispatchers and first responders – it all depends on what is needed.  One thing that should be stressed, though… playbooks are NOT plans, nor should they be treated as a replacement for training.  Playbooks should be based upon established policy, plans, and procedures; and training still should be conducted on those policies, plans, and procedures.  A playbook is the collection of job aids which will help us to navigate the things people may not routinely do – which makes them excellent for emergency management applications.

Consider that the content of the playbook won’t (and probably shouldn’t) try to map out an incident from inception to completion.  The playbook is intended to address critical actions within an early timeframe of the incident.  Following this, a team should be assembled and striving to manage the incident using the planning process and referencing the foundational plans and policies.  There may be a few nuanced circumstances and activities within the playbook that are still relevant in the extended response, but these should be few.

The organization and content of the playbook should depend on the objectives and audience of the tool.  It should not be heavy in narrative and doesn’t require a lot of background as a plan might.  For emergency management purposes, most playbooks are organized by hazard and/or impact, with topics such as Mass Shooting, Severe Storm, or Power Outage.  For each topic, the essential elements of response can be identified, perhaps in check-list format.  Additional job aids such as decision tables, flow charts, and references can also be incorporated.  While I’m a big fan of keeping things digital, playbooks and similar references are better in hard copy, as this helps to ensure the information is always accessible.  Bind it (a three ring binder is best, so content can be updated as needed) and insert tabs for easy reference.  Be sure to give all users their own copy.

When creating the playbook, consider what information needs to be conveyed.  While some repetition may be necessary from topic to topic, reduce the amount of in-document references (i.e. See page 19 for additional information), as the purpose of the document is to help keep people organized.  Always keep the user in mind, ensuring that they understand each step and that they have the ability, resources, and authority to perform the identified actions.  Ensure that the playbook is a proper reflection of established policy and procedure and be sure to test it for effectiveness.  Train people in its content and use, and be sure to provide regular training and content updates and to incorporate its use into exercises.

I’m interested in hearing your thoughts on playbooks and if you have created and/or used them.  Of course, if your jurisdiction or organization is looking for assistance in developing a playbook for your critical activities, let us know!

© 2016 – Timothy M. Riecker

Emergency Preparedness Solutions, LLC – Your Partner in Preparedness

 

New and Timely Cyber Security Information

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager Leave a comment

October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month.  With it, the DHS Private Sector Office has provided a number of resources to help organizations get involved in cyber security awareness.  These include weekly themes, such as Stop. Think. Connect., information on a weekly Twitter Chat series, and other information.

Perhaps released intentionally during National Cyber Security Awareness Month is the call for public comment on the National Cyber Incident Response Plan.  From their website, DHS’ National Protection and Programs Directorate and FEMA’s National Integration Center are leading the development of this document in coordination with the US Department of Justice, the Secretary of Defense, and other partners.  This plan is intended to provide a nation-wide approach to cyber incidents, incorporating roles for the private sector and all levels of government (TR – similar to the National Planning Frameworks, which this document rather heavily references).  The National Engagement Period ends on October 31, so be sure to review the document and provide feedback.  There are also a series of webinars referenced on the website.

In my initial and very cursory review of the plan, I was pleased to see the references to the National Preparedness Goal and National Planning Frameworks.  I’ve mentioned before that we need to strive to align and integrate all preparedness efforts along these lines and I’m thrilled to see it happening.  It’s even more encouraging to see this occurring with something that could be considered a bit fringe to traditional emergency management.  The plan directly references a number of Core Capabilities.  They take an interesting approach with this.  Instead of identifying which Core Capabilities the plan organizes under, they instead align certain Core Capabilities within what they call Lines of Effort.  These Lines of Effort include Threat Response, Asset Response, and Intelligence Support.  For each Core Capability they define the Core Capability, a la the National Preparedness Goal, and describe how that Core Capability applies to Line of Effort, along with listing associated critical tasks. (inserted is Table 2 from the plan which shows this alignment)

cyber-cc-by-loe

What I find even more interesting is the array of Core Capabilities they identified for their Lines of Effort.  While this plan is oriented toward response, the Core Capabilities they identify come from the Mission Areas of Prevention, Protection, Response, and Mitigation, along with including the three common Core Capabilities.  This further reinforces the thought that the Cyber Security Core Capability should also be included as a common Core Capability.  This is an interesting document which I look forward to reviewing in more detail.

© 2016 – Timothy Riecker, CEDP

Emergency Preparedness Solutions, LLC – Your Partner in Preparedness

 

Grading Preparedness Training

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager Leave a comment

While there is an abundance of training available in public safety, emergency management, and homeland security, do we have enough training available on the foundational preparedness activities?  By which, I mean Planning, Organizing, Equipping, Training, and Exercising – or POETE.  There is a wide variety of training available on tactics and application of skills, which is certainly important to our preparedness, but what is available (in the United States, by necessity of focusing this article) to help bolster our foundational preparedness skills?  Let’s look at each.

Exercises

For purposes of making comparisons throughout each of these preparedness elements, I actually want to start at the end of the POETE acronym, with Exercises.  At a glance, there seems to be a significant number of courses available to teach people how to design, conduct, and evaluate exercises.  To begin, there are a variety of exercise training courses available from FEMA’s Independent Study program, both foundational as well as hazard or function specific, such as those for radiological exercises or continuity of operations.  Independent Study courses provide an excellent overview of topics, but, by nature of the medium, generally don’t allow for an in depth analysis of the information or interaction with an instructor or other students.  So if you’ve taken the Independent Study courses and you need more information, what’s next?

Basic-level classroom-based training in exercises have all but disappeared.  Most of these programs, such as Exercise Design or the Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program (HSEEP) course were historically offered by the state emergency management offices, but are no longer listed by FEMA as available state-sponsored training, which is quite a shame since this is generally how the greatest needs are often met.  FEMA offers the new Exercise Design course, which is part of the Basic Emergency Management Academy, but is only offered directly through FEMA, either as a field delivered course or at the Emergency Management Institute.  FEMA also offers the HSEEP course as a ‘local delivery’, meaning that the course can be delivered at locations around the country, but this typically happens with much less frequency and volume than state-sponsored training, especially for a program that is so necessary to our preparedness efforts.  FEMA also offers the HSEEP course as an instructor-led webinar, which does help address some issues of accessibility and volume, but I feel misses the need for this being a classroom based course.  Some states are still conducting classroom versions of Exercise Design and HSEEP, along their own customized exercise-related training to meet needs which continue to exist in their states.  Technically they can, although FEMA isn’t supporting those courses with updated content.  There is also an issue with FEMA only permitting their own local or webinar-based deliveries of HSEEP to meet the prerequisite for the Master Exercise Practitioner (MEP) program.

MEP is designed to be an advanced program, with three week-long courses generally taken in-residence at FEMA’s Emergency Management Institute.  In full disclosure, I am not a MEP.  Not sure if I ever will be, but given the feedback I’ve received over the years about the program, I’m not likely to until it gets an overhaul.  While I’m sure the MEP is great for many who take it, the more experienced exercise practitioners I speak with have much concern about it not being advanced enough, mentioning that a lot of time is spent reviewing basics that should have been learned in courses prior.  And while many people mention that the out of class activities designing discussion-based and operations-based exercises are good, they do little to enhance learning for those who have been doing this for a while.  Granted, it’s understood that you can’t make everyone happy, and with an advanced class you always run the risk of people coming in who already have experience at the level of the course or higher.  That said, MEP has become an industry standard accomplishment, and I’d like to see the program exceed more people’s expectations.  Grade: B

Planning

Let’s now go back to the beginning of POETE with Planning.  There are a fair amount of courses out there that teach people how to plan.  Again, FEMA’s Independent Study program offers courses not only in foundational aspects of planning, but also those with consideration toward various hazards and functions.  At the next level, there are also quite a number of courses which are locally delivered, by state emergency management offices, FEMA, and other training partners such as TEEX or the Rural Domestic Preparedness Consortium; with courses cutting through various taxonomy levels and addressing foundational planning activities as well as those that are hazard and function specific.

There are courses available, both locally delivered, as well as in-residence at locations like EMI, CDP, or TEEX, to address a variety of planning related interests within the broad realm of public safety, emergency management, and homeland security.  A vast number of courses, which may not be specifically for planning, can certainly support planning efforts for certain populations, hazards, and functions.  Some states offer courses on emergency planning, either as self-sustained versions of the Emergency Planning course which is now only an Independent Study course and not supported by FEMA as a classroom delivery, or home grown courses.  Emergency planning is such an important and foundational topic that it must be more accessible.  While there are some courses on planning for recovery and mitigation, we need to support this as well – planning is not reserved solely for response.

The reason why I started the discussion of this post with Exercises is because they have the MEP program.  Regardless of the possibility of the program needing an overhaul, the concept of the MEP – that being an advanced level program – is certainly a best practice that should be reflected across these other preparedness elements.  I’ve heard a rumor of a Master Planner Program, similar to a MEP, being piloted within the last couple of years, but I’ve not seen anything official on it as of yet.  Overall, in regard to training courses for planning, I’d like to see a more cohesive approach, along with a ‘master level’ program.  Grade: B-

Organizing

Training on Organizing is not as direct of a topic as the others, but it is addressed, although I think this is another area that could be bolstered.  Most training on the topic of organization needs to dig not only into the foundational concepts of emergency management, which will aid in recognizing the resources and relationships that exist, but training in coordination, supervision, and management also need to better addressed.  FEMA does offer some very basic courses in their Professional Development Series which begin to address some of this.  There also exists the National Emergency Management Academies, but despite these being segregated into ‘Basic’, ‘Advanced’, and ‘Executive’, they are still largely offered only at EMI, which limits accessibility, especially at that area in the middle where most people need support.  We can also consider that the Incident Command System (ICS) provides us with some important support to the Organization capability element… take a look at my commentaries on available ICS training here.  Other training opportunities that support training for the organizational element can be found from non-emergency management sources, such as programs that address more traditional staff development and management concepts.  Often seen as ‘soft skills’, we shouldn’t ignore these training opportunities which help us to work within and understand organizations better.  Grade: C

Equipping

Training on Equipping is something else we don’t often seen as being offered by FEMA or the consortium entities.  Much of the training on equipment is and should be offered by the people who are specialists in the equipment or systems used.  This can range from the EOC management system you use to the interoperable communications equipment in your mobile unit.  The manufacturers and other subject matter experts should be delivering the initial training on this.  Ensure that training materials are provided so you can continue to train new staff or offer refresher training as needed.

If we look at the Equipping capability element in its broadest sense, however, we should consider the entire continuum of resource management.  This is an area where we see some training available from our traditional emergency management sources, including a few Independent Study courses and some classroom courses, including those addressing the responsibilities of the ICS Logistics Section.  It appears to me that there is a training gap here, as much of emergency management and incident management center on the resource management cycle, from preparedness through recovery.  While there exists an Independent Study course reviewing the concepts of resource management within NIMS, I have yet to see a solid, comprehensive, performance-level course on resource management that is practical for emergency management personnel.  Grade: D

Training

Training on Training… To my core, I’m a trainer, so I happen to have some strong feelings about how trainers and instructional designers (certainly different activities and not necessarily the same people) are trained and supported.  Broadly, in emergency services, the fire service has various levels of fire instructor courses and law enforcement has some courses available for instructor development.  Even in EMS we teach our instructors how to train.  Depending on the course, these programs can help refine platform delivery skills, or teach someone how to actually build curriculum (important note: a bunch of PowerPoint slides is NOT a training course… that’s a presentation).  In emergency management, there exists a state-delivered FEMA course on instructional presentation and evaluation skills, which is rarely seen delivered, but some states strongly use it to build and sustain their trainer cadre.  At a slightly more advanced level, FEMA offers the Trainer Program (formerly the Master Trainer Program).  Within this program are two tracks – the Basis Instructor Certificate and the Basic Instructional Design Certificate.

As a graduate of the Master Trainer Program, I was sad to see it go.  Despite some curriculum revisions and streamlining, the need wasn’t supported.  While I understand and somewhat agree with the initial intent of the course, the six courses that made up the program were a significant commitment.  The job of training also isn’t seen to be as sexy as exercises, so comparatively, the MEP program had fared better.  FEMA’s separation of instruction from instructional design was a wise move, as some jurisdictions don’t do much course development, but do need to develop platform instructors.  While advanced courses in training and instructional design are no longer available from FEMA, they can be obtained from sources like the Association for Talent Development (formerly the American Society for Training and Development), but at a not insignificant cost.  Grade: B-

Assessment

Just when you thought we might be done… I often like to include Assessment in with POETE.  I believe assessment is a necessary activity within preparedness to identify where we stand, where we need to be, and evaluate efforts on an ongoing basis.  Assessment is an interesting topic to identify training on.  Within the realm of emergency management training, there is really little that directly supports assessment, yet most courses can by providing us with better information on projects, concepts, and applications.  These provide us the context in which to assess, but there still isn’t much out there to tell us how to assess.  We need to assess our plans, our organization, equipment, training, and exercises.  Sometimes we find some guidance that can help us, such as broad planning standards in CPG 101 or specific checklists on evaluating hazard mitigation plans.  Guidance and job aids are great, but having a critical eye to assess programs and projects is something that must be trained.  Big gap here.  Grade: D

Where this leaves us…

Average Grade: C

While C is a passing grade, it’s not great.  It’s closer to failure than it is to excellence.  We have some great training programs out there, but there are certainly training gaps that exist in these key preparedness activities.  While standards have been established for some of these activities (standards should exist for all of them!), training must support this guidance to ensure that it is followed (historical perspective: some training programs took quite some time to incorporate standards, such as HSEEP).  Further, training must be kept current to ensure that best practices and improvements are embraced and communicated.  One-and-done training may not be suitable for these topics.  All of this informs training need, which we must constantly assess to identify what training is needed, for who, to what degree of expertise, and by what delivery method.  The bottom line is that for people to conduct these important preparedness activities, they need to know how to do it and they need to stay up to date on the standards of practice.  Those who set the standards and those funded to support implementation must always pay heed to the training needs surrounding them.  There must also be a balance in training… we need to minimize burdensome, extraneous training and instead maximize quality, practical training that will build capability.

Trends

A great deal of homeland security funds are spent on the development of training across the nation by state and local entities, resulting in some incredible and innovative courses (as well as some rather mundane ones) which meet local needs.  This is a great program and should certainly continue.  Things to watch out for, though…  Many of these courses can be utilized regionally or nationally to support needs, but they may require modifications.  Additionally, while I will rarely discourage any jurisdiction from meeting training needs they might have, we do run the risk of developing non-standardized training across the nation.

Over the past 15 years, we have certainly seen an increase in the variety and volume of courses available from FEMA and consortium entities.  The training they offer is generally fantastic, but now we are faced with the other side of standardization – some courses are too generic, as they need to be applied nation-wide.  Additionally, while scheduling of these courses, particularly the locally delivered ones, has become streamlined and easy through state training officers, many courses have a significant wait list, with some courses being scheduled out not just months, but years.  This significantly delays the progress of preparedness efforts in many areas across the nation.

Overall, the number of state-delivered courses supported by FEMA has appeared to steadily decrease over the past few years.  Certainly one reason for this is the lack of staff and staff time at FEMA’s Emergency Management Institute to support these courses and keep content relevant.  This is generally no fault of EMI, as their funding allocations have not supported staffing for these purposes as of late.  As a former state training officer, I suggest that states and regions are in the best position to identify and track training needs and to deliver a great deal of courses, certainly at the awareness and performance/operations level, and some at higher levels.  These programs, however, need to be supported with expertise, funds, and regional collaboration.

Interested to hear your thoughts…

© 2016 – Timothy Riecker, CEDP

Emergency Preparedness Solutions, LLC – Your Partner in Preparedness