Planning and Exercise - Principles of Emergency Management - page 235

consider planning an exercise, you will need to develop support and train
people.
− Managerial Support
What is the level of support and demand for your exercise? Do you have
managerial support and is the need for a exercise recognized?
− Experience and Organization Maturity
When was the last exercise? If your organization has never had one, con-
sider starting with workshop style meetings or tabletops. If your organi-
zation has had one before, did it go well and can you build on it, or is the
organization preparedness mature enough to move on to a more complex
exercise?
What level of exercise experience is available to pull this together ? If you have
never designed an exercise, start with a less complicated exercise design
that would have the same impact than a multiagency full-scale exercise.
What physical facilities, equipment, communications systems, and other hard
resources would be used in a real incident? Will they be available for an
exercise? If you want to run an exercise of your EOC or your corporate
headquarters but they are not available, then you will need to consider
another design and scope for your exercise.
− Time and Effort
How much time do you have and when do you expect to deliver the exercise?
Some exercises can be pulled together in a matter of minutes and have no
impact on regular operations. Consider drills, casual workshops, and very
simplified tabletops. Some exercises can take a year or longer to imple-
ment. It all depends on your design and exercise type.
4. Define the exercise scope
What are the limits of the exercise efforts? Scope refers to the extent and
boundaries of the exercise. Typically, it defines the kind of exercise partici-
pants (e.g., levels of government, private sectors, corporate levels) rather than
the actual number of people.
Other parameters of scope may include
− Geographic size (local, national, regional)
− Number of participants
− Responder functions
− Hazard type
5. Consider the exercise type
What type of exercise best meets your training needs within the available
resources?
6. Address the costs and liabilities
What will the exercise cost in terms of funding, human resources, and organi-
zational liability?
You should consider the liabilities and costs early in the exercise design.