Image via WikipediaWhen was the last time you had a good exercise that tested your abilities? Was the exercise realistic? What did you learn?
I have seen a number of "bad" exercises. Some of the worst have been tabletop exercises where the participants drink their own "bathwater". Everyone gathers around a table, discusses a scenario, nods their heads for a while and goes home...what does that have to do with reality? I think everyone knows that emergency events fall into two categories - the "USUAL" where it happens every day and people are quite comfortable about dealing with them and "UNUSUAL" where the "fit hits the sham".
Unusual events seem to have these characteristics:
- Multi-agency response
- Large risk to life
- Cross-jurisdictional
- High potential for loss
- Outside of "normal" response
So how do we train for these types of events? Everyone is busy, time is at a premium and the "day job" simply gets in the way. So we set aside time to conduct an exercise. As discussed above, an exercise needs to be easy to run, not cost a lot, bring REAL value to the training and not take a lot of time.
Live exercises are good, but they cost a lot, take a lot of time and you can't run them realistically because there are limits to what you can do in training. I think that live exercises alway need to be run, but perhaps only occasionally (once every other year) to PROVE that everyone knows their job during unusual events.
Tabletop exercises are cheap and easy to run, but provide poor training. Sure it is better than nothing, but no-one is ever certain that the decisions that are agreed upon around the table are the right decisions. We rely on subject matter experts who attend the tabletop to tell us that the decisions we made were right...but they don't really know, other than through their experience, which won't cover every situation.
If we look next door at the military, they train all the time with simulation tools and have been doing so for years. Here is why they use simulation:
- Live exercises cost too much and are hard to run
- Tabletop exercises don't provide quality training
- Simulation gives training flexibility to practice nearly any eventuality
- Good simulation tools teach good lessons
Any of this sound familiar? So why is it that the Emergency Response/Public Safety is slow to embrace these technologies. I think we believe we are too busy doing the "USUAL" to worry about the "UNUSUAL", and that if we talk about the "UNUSUAL" once a year or so at a tabletop, that is "good enough".
The problem is that the UNUSUAL always comes back to bite you, and the bite may include loss of life, loss of property, slow response or ineffective response. Look at the hatred that British Petroleum (BP) has garnered in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. They were just doing the USUAL - they had a cut and paste emergency response plan, they went through the motions, attended the safety briefings, etc.. The problem is that the public demands better...for the same price...without spending any extra time.
How do we do more with the same resources? CONSTRUCTIVE SIMULATION may be part of that solution.
Constructive Simulation is different from first person simulators where you look at the computer screen and see the world in 3D. Instead, you typically see a top-down map of the area and vehicles and persons responding to the event, just like a 911 operator with a map.
Constructive simulations usually allow you to run events that are much more complex and difficult than a live event...AND they provide feedback for decision makers. If someone wants to move fire trucks from a mutual aid partner to the disaster location, these trucks take the same amount of time to move from X to Y as the real trucks. Miracles don't happen. Responses get tested and feedback is provided so that everyone can learn from their mistakes.
Constructive simulations aren't perfect - a computer program is not going to solve all of your emergency response issues. All constructive simulation will do is take a group of effective individuals and their equipment and teach them to work more effectively as a team.
In the next bog, I will describe how a constructive exercise works...
Look forward to your comments!
Bruce
Bruce:
ReplyDeleteYou identified the fact that the military has been using Constructive Simulation for quite some time. On review I feel the difference is that the cost to doing things wrong in the military is pretty great, loss of life, loss of the mission and perhaps loss of our country/way of life.
The measure of loss during an emergency is certainly dollars, and yes frequently loss of life. But other than firefighters fraternity the loss of life is not a buddy/friend. So I toss out there that people do not take it as seriously.
Firefighters lose buddies = they train all the time.
Soldiers lose buddies = they train all the time.
The other professions? They let real life get in the way of training for the catastrophic.
I agree with your statement regarding live versus simulated exercises. The great thing about simulation is that it is the ideal means of training personnel in the EOC. All of their inputs can be easily simulated/coordinated and modified on the fly to ensure the Primary Training Audience is constantly stimulated.
While working at one of our Air Bases in Germany in the Cold War, the police/firefighters/engineers and the other support organisations were constantly challenged. While the Pilots ended up doing the same thing they did every day, planned and flew missions.
The exercises were truly only for the support and emergency personnel. Underground we were totally oblivious to what was happening in the real world. At the end of 3 days when like a ground hog we left the hole and finally saw our shadows - I expected to see destruction and reconstruction all around me...... but no just as I had left it. We had a great dynamic organisation in place to ensure things were as prepared as possible.
Thanks for the relevants facts and information.
DeleteRoss,
ReplyDeleteGreat comments! I think that the Military had a lot of advantages early on since they had the luxury of time for training and large procurement dollars to purchase constructive simulation. Fortunately, they have worked most of the kinks out of simulation in general and a larger assortment of more useful tools are now available to Emergency Responders and Public Safety officials. I think that the future is quite bright in Public Safety exercises and a lot of people are seeing the benefits that constructive simulation can bring to an organization in terms of time and cost savings, improved training and better exercises.
Thanks again for taking the time to comment!
All the best,
Bruce