An exercise lets your team use its emergency response plan (ERP) to make decisions and find instructions that need to be clearer.
That can involve a short drill to check who gets contacted and in what order or a tabletop exercise that brings several response teams together. Choose the format that lets you observe the task you need to test.
Build a tabletop exercise ↓The person who can start your emergency response is unavailable.
Who takes over?Ask the team to find the answer in the plan and explain its next steps.
In this article
Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to change through experience. Learning can change the connections that support knowledge and skills. Practicing the same task in later exercises gives the team more chances to remember the instructions and use them.
During an exercise, people have to remember what to do and check their decisions against the plan. Research on learning and memory suggests these ways to help them learn.
Ask who acts first and which instructions to follow. Then check the answer against the plan.
Research on remembering informationRepeat the task in a later exercise. Returning to it over time can help people remember what they learned.
Research on practice over timeAfter the exercise, talk through any mistakes and give people a chance to try again with the right information.
Research on learning from feedbackPractice the same task in different situations. This can help people use what they have learned when something unfamiliar happens.
Research on practicing with different examplesChoose what the team needs to practice before choosing the scenario. Be specific about what people need to do. They might check who is on board, update leadership, or hand the response over to the next shift.
Which section applies? Who needs to be involved? What information is missing, and who will get it?
Can participants find the procedure, identify who takes over, and explain their next steps?
Invite the people needed for the task, including external partners where their involvement matters. Encourage questions about unclear roles, outdated contact details, and tasks that no team has taken responsibility for.
Check who gets contacted and in what order.
Bring response teams together to work through their decisions.
Test how several teams work together as they gain experience.
Keep the task the same and change one or two details. Ask the team to use the plan again in the new situation.
Add changes one at a time so you can see which part of the plan needs attention. Broader exercises can test how teams share information and support families while keeping other operations running. A surprise drill can help test how quickly people respond. Set clear limits so it does not disrupt real operations.
Discuss what happened soon after the exercise. Ask where decisions slowed, what information was missing, and which responsibilities were unclear. Check whether the problem came from the procedure or the way people were expected to use it.
“We could not identify who takes over.”
Update the plan to name who takes over when the person normally responsible is unavailable.
Name the person responsible.
Set a date and update the procedure.
Change the circumstances and check that the team can use the update.
Return to the exercise builder to create a tabletop based on the task your team needs to practice.