Exercise Design & Development

Planning & Preparedness

Planning and Preparedness are a core foundation and of vital importance for any organization's emergency management program. Exercises offer the highest degree of realism at a low-risk to your organization to test and validate operational plans. In addition, exercises enhance operational readiness for disasters and building strong, lasting relationships critical for success during emergency events.

Emergency Management exercises validate 3 main points:

Validation: It validates plans, protocols and procedures and it demonstrates the resolve to prepare for emergencies.
Training: It develops and sharpens staff competencies. Provides staff the confidence that they are able to carry out their various roles and assesses their performance and provides crucial feedback on performance.
Testing: It tests Standard Operating Procedures (SOP's) and reveals potential gaps.

A solid exercise and preparedness program leads to an improved emergency readiness state for your organization. It's also a low-risk environment for your organization's staff to test their capabilities in potential roles they may have in a response.

Types of Exercises

There are various types of exercises, which are either discussion-based exercises or operation-based exercises.

Discussion-based exercises:

Seminar: an informal discussion-based exercise led by a presenter or facilitator, used to teach or orient participants.
Workshop: a formal discussion-based exercise led by a presenter or facilitator, used to build or achieve a product.
Tabletop Exercise (TTX): involves personnel in an informal group discussion centered on a hypothetical scenario.

Operation-based exercises:

Drill: a supervised activity that tests a specific operation or function of a single agency.
Functional Exercise (FE): a single or multi-agency activity designated to evaluate capabilities and multiple functions using simulated response.
Full-scale exercise (FSE): high-stress, multi-agency, multi-jurisdictional activity involving actual deployment of resources in a coordinated response, as if a real incident occurred.