In the midst of this pandemic, we’ve talked about and assisted agencies in taking their training to the Digital environment (see the article “Transforming the Classroom into a Digital Journey”). And now organizations are looking at how they conduct preparedness exercises either during this time of “distancing”, or in the post-COVID-19 “normal” environment.
How about this consideration: What if we must react to another major issue during the response to this pandemic? Hurricane season is just around the corner. What happens if we experience a major earthquake or other severe storms that cause tornadoes or flooding? Are we prepared to address multiple issues at the same time from dispersed locations? What if there is a significant cyber attack, or man-made event that impacts our ports and waterways? How do you train, test, and evaluate your organization’s response capabilities for these types of considerations or preparedness goals?
Working in a remote environment, along with the prolonged duration of this pandemic, should not be looked upon as a barrier to continuing your training and exercise program. From Table Tops, to functional to full-scale exercises, what you need to start looking at is your organizational knowledge, resources, and leadership , and identify what you need to design, plan, execute and manage a virtual exercise.
As we all know, training and exercise activities vary in scale, scope, and complexity. And although all elements of an in person event cannot be fully replicated or realized in a virtual environment, much of what you want to achieve or test can be accomplished. Practice drills, facilitated discussions, workshops, tabletop exercises, rehearsals of concepts, and even certain aspects of a functional exercise can be very effectively adapted and successfully executed in a virtual setting, IF you have the right team helping you put this together. This is where the NMLEA can help you, using its exercise practitioners, virtual design experience, and digital training tools. In addition, the NMLEA Partnership with EPIC Ready Software can put all this together for you in a very streamlined, flexible, scalable and cost effective solution. Contact us at info@nmlea.org for more information on how you can “Go Viral” with your exercise plans.
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