Exercising

Discussion-Based Exercises

Discussion-based exercises are a highly undervalued part of the preparedness cycle. While it may seem that your staff sitting around a table walking through a scenario isn’t as appealing as your SWAT team rescuing a hostage during a full-scale exercise, discussion-based exercises enable a thorough walkthrough of a scenario while allowing everyone to ask appropriate questions and absorb the content of your plans and procedures. After completing a discussion-based exercise, exercise participants are far more prepared for a full-scale exercise or a real incident. One of the most appealing traits of a discussion based exercise is the cost, typically a fraction of a full-scale exercise cost. Decision Aid offers the following discussion based exercises:

Seminars - Our seminars orient your stakeholders to plans, policies, procedures, and protocols. They are particularly valuable for entities that are developing or making major changes to existing plans or procedures. Seminars can be similarly helpful when attempting to assess or gain awareness of the capabilities of interagency or inter-jurisdictional operations.
Workshops - Similar to seminars, our workshops differ in two important aspects: participant interaction is increased, and the focus is placed on achieving or building a product. We help you conduct an effective workshops by identifying and inviting the broadest attendance of relevant stakeholders. Decision Aid’s workshops can assist your organization to create stakeholder-built standard operating procedures (SOPs), emergency operations plans, continuity of operations plans, or mutual aid agreements.
Tabletop Exercises - Tabletops assist your organization in generating discussion of various issues regarding a hypothetical, simulated emergency. Our tabletops can be used to enhance general awareness, validate your plans and procedures, and assess the types of systems needed to guide the prevention of, protection from, mitigation of, response to, and recovery from a defined incident. Compared to a full-scale exercise, tabletops allow players to discuss issues in depth, collaboratively examining areas of concern and solving problems.
Games - In an exercise context, a game is a simulation of operations that often involves two or more teams, usually in a competitive environment, using rules, data, and procedures designed to depict an actual or hypothetical situation. Games explore the consequences of player decisions and actions and are useful tools for validating plans and procedures or evaluating resource requirements. The open, decision-based format of a game can incorporate “what if” questions that expand exercise benefits. Decision Aid’s most popular games are the active shooter and other adversary style threats series.

Operations-Based Exercises

If your are confident in your team’s training and have led them through a progressive exercise series, we recommend conducting an operations-based exercise. Operations-based exercises start the process of physically testing staff, equipment, and systems and require an experienced exercise planning team to ensure a return on the investment. Decision Aid enables you to leverage our vast experience facilitating exercises to keep your planning team on track and on time. Depending on their scale, operations-based exercises require additional facilitators and evaluators to ensure the exercise timeline runs smoothly and exercise objectives are evaluated thoroughly for inclusion in the after action report. Decision Aid offers the following operations based exercises:

Drills - Decision Aid can move your organization beyond the old-fashioned “fire drill”. Drills can be conducted to validate any function or capability within your organization emergency management program. Our drills can be used to provide training on new equipment, validate procedures, or practice and maintain current skills. A successful drill helps determine if your emergency plans can be executed as designed and assesses whether more training is required. The key is that clearly defined plans, procedures, and protocols must be in place prior to executing a drill in your organization. Our team can assess your readiness for a drill and provide technical assistance to ensure you’re ready for this next step.
Functional Exercises - Decision Aid specializes on delivering robust functional exercises to test command, control, and coordination functions within your organization. Functional exercises validate and evaluate multiple capabilities or functions. Our most popular functional exercises focus on plans, policies, procedures, and include staff members involved in Emergency Operations Center and Incident Command System functions. Have Decision Aid craft an emergency operations exercise for your organization to test the ability of your team to work together and react to a scenario.
Full-Scale Exercises - All planning, training, and prior exercises cumulate with this most complex and resource-intensive type of exercise. Full-scale exercises involve multiple agencies, organizations, and jurisdictions and validate many facets of preparedness. Events are projected through an exercise scenario with frequent updates that drive activity at the operational level. These exercises are usually conducted in a real-time, stressful environment that is intended to mirror a real incident. Personnel and resources are typically mobilized and deployed to the scene, where actions are performed as if a real incident had occurred. The exercise site for an full-scale exercise is usually large, and site logistics require close monitoring. Safety issues, particularly regarding the use of props and special effects, must be monitored. Our team can assist in providing the level of support needed to conduct this type exercise.

Exercises enable organizations to assess emergency plans and staff retention of skills provided in their training programs. A common mistake made by exercise planning teams is a focus around designing a flashy event rather than a realistic test of their organization’s capabilities. These flashy exercises are great when the local TV station shows up to get footage for the evening news, but typically frustrating and confusing for the exercise participants. Decision Aid designs and facilitates exercises that engages your staff and result in clear recommendations that will better prepare your organization. Our entire team is well-versed in the Homeland Security Exercise Evaluation Program (HSEEP) and can build a progressive series of increasingly complex exercises to test your program at a “crawl, walk, run” pace. Decision Aid can also ensure exercises meet necessary requirements for any accrediting organization including Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). We excel taking the burden off your team for the entire exercise process, including securing a venue, ordering food, inviting participants, providing evaluators and facilitators, and creation of all exercise plans and documentation. Like our many other products, our after action review and improvement planning process sets us apart from competitors by integrating our unique corrective action decision aids.

"Crawl, Walk, Run"

Exercise Series

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