Planning and writing an exercise

The nature of the task What you now need to do is to produce an exercise that: has a realistic, relevant and achievable aim that meets your needs; has clear, concise, unambiguous and achievable objectives that reflect the Aim; includes a General Instruction that covers all the points raised in the Study Guide, including the debrief arrangements; provides appropriate and relevant background information in the form of a General Idea; includes a realistic scenario for participants in the form of a Special Idea; provides the exercise control staff with a detailed sequential script of exercise events in the form of an Event Schedule; and finally includes a questionnaire listing the questions you would like to have answered in your exercise debrief. This is quite a task, or is it? Remember that as you worked through the CD you were asked to prepare draft components of your exercise. You can now use these as the basis for the preparation of your final assignment in this subject. Examine the Assignment 2 guidelines contained in your Subject Outline and using these and your previously drafted sections of your proposed exercise, complete the exercise planning and writing section of your assignment.   Writing up the need The first thing you will need to do is determine the need. Do this by examining the SOP you prepared during Topic 2 and see which areas of them should be validated or tested. Include this in your introduction to the assignment. Writing up the analysis Decide first who is the most appropriate authorising officer and seek his/her approval to run the exercise. Then (if administratively possible) convene a meeting of key players and determine: Aim Objectives Resource and budget Agencies to be involved Composition of writing team. If it is not possible to hold a meeting you will need to carry out this activity on your own. However, it is strongly recommended that you obtain at least some informal advice/assistance from others. Finally, draft a letter, for the authorising officer’s signature, to the agencies/organisations you would like to participate either as members of the writing team, exercise control or as exercise participants. Writing up the design Using the outputs from the analysis activity and input from your writing team plan your exercise and produce the exercise documentation. Don’t forget you have already prepared drafts of most of the components of the exercise. These now need to be refined and expanded where necessary. Your outputs from this will be: a General Instruction a General Idea a Special Idea an Event Schedule. Writing up the debrief Review the Aim and Objectives of your exercise and decide what questions you would like answered as a result of your debrief and produce a simple questionnaire for issue to all participants. If you carry out these activities in a logical sequence, referring back to the Study Guide when necessary, you will produce an exercise that meets your identified needs. Subject conclusion This has concluded your studies within this EMG 201 subject. You should now have completed a draft set of SOP (assignment 1) and followed this with the undertaking and documentation of a training needs analysis and the planning and writing of an exercise (Assignment 2). This completes the Emergency Management Planning subjects within your course and provides you with the final parts of the emergency management planning process. Some students will have based their emergency management planning projects on a workplace or organisational community. Others may have based their planning around a residential community or a social community or activity. No matter what the community focus of your projects has been, I hope that the work you have carried out over these subjects has been valuable and beneficial to your selected community and that its emergency management preparedness has been enhanced. As a final note I would strongly advise/suggest that you include copies of your emergency management planning assignment (at the very least the major assignment reports (assignment 2s) within your Professional Practice Portfolio. You will find these documents will provide the required evidence to demonstrate the level of skill you have acquired and the practical application of these skills in an actual community environment. Such evidence will be extremely valuable to you if and when you apply in the future for emergency management related jobs or promotion. Congratulations on the work you have achieved. I hope that you have found it interesting and enjoyable.

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