Exercises

Division of Emergency Management

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Exercise Assistance Request Form
Exercise Templates
Exercise Types

Exercise Form

We like hearing about all the great things happening throughout the state. Please use the Exercise Form to tell us about your upcoming exercises, to request support, or to reserve a game.

An Integrated Preparedness Plan (IPP) establishes overall preparedness program priorities for the upcoming preparedness cycle, typically three years, and serves as a guiding document for a training and exercise program.

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Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program

Exercises play a vital role in preparedness. They provide an opportunity to familiarize personnel with roles and responsibilities, assess and validate capabilities, and identify strengths and areas for improvement. The Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program (HSEEP) is a flexible, scalable, adaptable set of exercise and evaluation principles. It provides a common approach to exercise program management, design and development, conduct, evaluation, and improvement planning. Visit FEMA’s HSEEP page for additional information on current HSEEP doctrine (open FEMA’s HSEEP website page).
DEM has adopted HSEEP as a best practice for exercise design and development, conduct, evaluation and improvement planning. The HSEEP Preparedness Toolkit (Prep Toolkit) has valuable resources and templates for each step of the exercise cycle such as HSEEP doctrine, best practices, document and presentation templates, and more (access the Prep Toolkit).

The Unified Reporting Tool (URT) is the data collection tool for stakeholders to fill out FEMA’s THIRA/SPR assessment form. These assessments guide an organization in setting capability targets. Exercises test and validate capability targets to identify areas of improvement.

DEM has created versions of some of the HSEEP templates with instructions and links to supporting documents. Please email [email protected] if you are interested in using DEM templates.

DEM ShakeOut Exercise Plans

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Exercise Information

There are seven exercise types. Four are discussion based and three are operations based. These exercises increase in their complexity. Here are a few exercise tools that may be used as aids for determining which exercise type is appropriate. View exercise types.

  • Other Exercise Program Management Tools

Integrated Preparedness Planning Workshop (IPPW) 

An Integrated Preparedness Plan (IPP) is developed during an Integrated Preparedness Planning Workshop (IPPW). The purpose of the IPPW is to consider a range of preparedness activities within the Integrated Preparedness Cycle and, with the guidance provided by senior leaders, set preparedness priorities and schedule preparedness activities for the multi-year IPP.

Preparedness activities fall under POETE elements: Plan, Organize, Equip, Train, and Exercise. So, the IPPW is intended to incorporate all aspects of preparedness, not just training and exercises, in an effort to address capability gaps and improve overall preparedness. Sponsoring a successful IPPW is a team effort and should not rest solely with training and exercise personnel.

Resources 

I Wonder Webinars