Train Like You Fight

Quarterly Colorado State EOC Exercise

Yesterday, two tweets with photos on Twitter caught my attention. These tweets were shared by the Colorado Emergency Management team and Mr. Mike Willis, Director, Office of Emergency Management. They show Colorado's State Emergency Operations Center (EOC) during a large-scale exercise involving nearly 90 participants from local, state, federal and non-goverment agencies. For those who have been part of real-world and exercise operations on a watch floor, I expect you can identify with the activity in these photos. I will always be interested in how an ops center conducts an exercise, especially one this large. No doubt these EOC's become a beehive of activity during an actual large-scale incident. As someone who calls Colorado home, I applaud Mr. Willis and the Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management team for leading these exercises as part of their preparedness in case of a large scale disaster. Thank you all and well done!

Quarterly Colorado State EOC Exercise

These photos caused me to think back to my experience with exercises, certification training and the statement that I use often - "train like you fight." When I had the opportunity to lead an exercise or provide a hands-on, certification exam you could expect it to be:

• Challenging - not your typical, expected scenario 
• Thought-provoking - just like real-world incidents; twists, turns and events you didn't or couldn't see coming
• Collaboration-centered; a team of teams approach
• Technology-rich - chat, video, and audio heavy; limited email use due to the speed and tempo
• Stressful - to simulate your emotions during a complex, high-tempo event where life-safety is a priority

Why did I dial these scenarios way up during exercises and then on game day for a certification? Why did some call it "death by Collabman?" Simple. I wanted their investment in the exercise or certification to mean something. Most importantly, I wanted to instill confidence in the individual and/or team that they could handle whatever came their way at 2am on a Saturday morning. Easy, predictable incident? Check, no problem.  An incident that was complex, fast-moving, over the top with unknowns? Bring it - no problem, we are trained to collaborate, share, adapt and flex. Sure, they cursed my name under their breath during the training but when they finished they would be ready when the "you know what" hit the proverbial fan.

What influenced my approach? Throughout my career I had been part of and witnessed numerous exercises/certifications that were so tightly scripted, so unimaginative and predictable they were not the least bit helpful nor did they prepare me for what was to come during real-world ops. They were a walk in the park (maybe a crawl), built on an "if this happens, then do that" approach. No need to really think. Simply grab the binder from the shelf, turn to page 6. Skim down to paragraph 4 - everything you needed for this incident was covered. We were checklist driven.

There was no hint of what reality looks like on an ops center floor when a commercial aircraft, loaded with fuel, carrying precious human life is hijacked and flown like a missile into a tower on a clear, sunny morning in Lower Manhattan...

Human Net
John G., Sandia National Laboratories

What does your exercise look like for a major, complex incident? How effective is your Human Net? What state-of-the-art, online technologies (i.e., chat) are being used to connect with external partners and customers to create a team of teams approach? How does the entire team maintain shared situational awareness (SA) and understanding (SU) when the flow of information is overwhelming? Is SA a state-of-mind or just a visual on the big screen? How is streaming video being used in your ops center? I will stop there.

Just curious...

I look forward to comments on the state of exercise play and certification training in your ops center. How can I help?

Thanks for your time!

Humbly,

Collabman