Realistic Exercise / Drill Scenarios

[Rob Tayloe <tayloe@ibm.estd.battelle.org>]

Given the recent discussion on realism of emergency response exercise / drill
scenarios, I felt a need to inject my two cents worth.

My view is that the purpose of the exercise / drill is for training of the potential
responders to an emergency.  One may choose to test, develop, maintain, and practice
the skills required in a particular emergency response activity by conducting a drill. 
The drill may be a component of an exercise, whichs tests a portion (or portions) 
of the integrated capability of emergency response plans, equipment, and organizations.

It is reasonable to design a scenario to challenge certain aspects of the 
emergency response capability.  In order to develop the sequence of precursor
events leading to the emergency, one may need to make certain assumptions.
These assumptions will likely (and hopefully) be that multiple unlikely
events or actions occur.  The operative concept is one of likelihood or 
probability of occurrence.  Certainly there is an ample history of things
not working as designed or of folks doing the wrong thing (or not doing the
correct thing).  A well done Safety Analysis can be invaluable in the selection 
of appropriate precursor events and development of a realistic, albeit unlikely
scenario.

In my opinion, it is a disservice to those that would benefit from the exercise /
drill to have non-physical scenarios (i.e., the suspension of gravity).  But before
we too readily dismiss scenarios developed by others, we should actually consider
the potential failure mechanism at work.  Many seemingly impossible events
become all the more possible if one or more failures occur.  It is important to
identify those failures.

When I have had the responsibility for designing exercises or drills, I found it
useful to start with a recent incident, perhaps even a relatively minor, non-
reportable event.  Then I assume other failures or missteps.  Participation
by an operationally knowledgable person, not participating in the exercise,
is very useful at this stage.

Further realism in the exercise can be achieved by use of controllers that have
been prebriefed on their role.  Their role could be to inject some piece of 
simulated information at a given time or otherwise direct the course of 
the exercise towards some desired training objective.  Exercise observers are
very useful in getting feedback on the exercise.

And, of course, no exercise is complete without a debriefing and critique subsequent
to the exercise.  The exercise goals and training objectives should be stated
and feedback solicited from participants, controllers, and observers on the degree
of success in achieving those objectives.

The process of maintaining a desirable level of emergency preparedness is never
complete and the development and conduct of exercises should be a recurring activity.


-- Rob Tayloe <tayloe@battelle.org>
-- Columbus, OH