What EM Programs Should Practice Most
Recognizing and acknowledging problems are the first steps to solving them.
Most emergency managers haven’t recognized or acknowledged a big, solvable problem. The circumstance is blocking program success at early stages of program maturity, probably in 95% of EM programs.
The Problem
Ironically, despite their explicit purpose, EM programs don’t routinely practice problem solving. If they practice at all, they mostly practice generally-described activity embodied in national doctrine.
Let me share an analogy to support my point.
Firefighter trainees are taught a lot of knowledge and skills. They learn about fire behavior. They don and doff PPE. They roll-out hose lines. However, they don’t become firefighters until they go into a burn room to put out fire and solve “hiccups” engineered into their training. They don’t graduate until they navigate a smoke-filled room to find and retrieve an incapacitated victim; another exercise designed not to go according to a textbook example. They practice removing heat from firegrounds and learn to deal with reflashes when heat stubbornly persists. To graduate, they must not only demonstrate knowledge, but skills proficiency, teamwork, temperament, thoughtfulness and PROBLEM SOLVING.
In contrast, EMs learn the NRP, National Frameworks, NIMS, the Planning P, SitReps and IAPs. EMs, by and large, don't practice and are not tested in problem solving. Indeed, there are few problem-solving tests at all, in large part because EM success is not universally defined. To demonstrate proficiency among other EMs, they develop SitReps and IAPs with very general objectives. They don’t practice solving novel and dynamic problems. More importantly, they don’t build and help teams DESIGNED TO SOLVE THESE TYPES OF PROBLEMS.
Most EM programs are, thus, resigned to react to problems as they emerge with little to no anticipation or preparation for them
That’s why the notion of AHIMTs became popular. The hope is that some team has experience solving the right problems. However, most of it is about using another team to augment staff or transfer operational responsibility.
Examples Showing Nuance
Effective EMs recognize and acknowledge that relying on clichés like “the fire ICP handles fire evacuation” and “the Sheriff handles evacuation” are merely partial or at least not adequately correct statements, and symptoms of one of the biggest problems in EM – lack of practice solving problems. The truths are that fire knows best about the need to evacuate during fire and should recommend evacuation as early as practical; a Sheriff has the statutory authority to order evacuation but must work with other organizations to effect an orderly and effective mass evacuation. The Fire IC and Sheriff unilaterally facilitating evacuation without care, shelter, transportation, communication, system and other support will be suboptimal and may even generate more risk than value. In nearly all jurisdictions, EMs are the only, practically-prepared people to facilitate a conversation about the nature of mass evacuation, so all the necessary organizations can anticipate and prepare for success.
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The Solution
Indeed, EMs have a huge role to play, in the fire evacuation example and many others because they are CRITICAL TO COORDINATED PROBLEM SOLVING AMONG MULTIPLE, NON-TRADITIONAL RESPONSE ORGANIZATIONS. If EMs don’t facilitate exercises to show what happens when a fire ICP conducts evacuation without shelter, PIO, feeding, transportation, field communication, and other support, evacuation is likely to be ad hoc and far less than optimal.
EMs need to facilitate exercises that bring necessary players together before an incident to practice HOW to effectively operate in situations not subject to some challenge but DEFINED BY PROBLEMS. EOPS, MOUs and ESF Annexes are not enough. Avoiding exercises to defer recognition or acknowledgement is no answer.
The Take-away
If Gen. George Patton was correct in saying, “you fight like you train”, SitReps, IAPs and ICS 214s don’t win fights. They simply document a fight for which EMs and their programs must train for and practice a lot more.
EMs intuitively know this but defer action. A poll I conducted last week again shows this. Almost 2/3 of respondents believe some kind of exercise should be conducted every quarter. Want to guess what percentage of EM programs exercise 4 times a year?
Recently, my team at Complete EM developed a free version of ODRespond. Now there is no reason not to easily practice multi-agency coordination and problem solving. We even developed a way to easily integrate typical problems to solve and provide constructive criticism with which to better evolve EM programs.
George Whitney is a former local, state and federal emergency manager who founded Complete EM, a Software as a Service (SaaS) and consultancy helping emergency managers achieve program success. Click here to join Complete EM's email list where you'll receive free emergency management program tips. You may also feel free to join him as a connection on LinkedIn.