Publisher's Synopsis
Emergencies and disasters can happen at any time and often without warning. While emergencies are often somewhat limited in scope and intensity, they can also be catastrophic in nature with far-reaching impacts on a national and international level. Exercises represent a key element of preparedness that communities and organizations should adopt to ensure they are prepared to respond to the litany of threats they face.Exercises have been a foundational component of emergency management for decades, yet many agencies and organizations lack the level of exercise planning expertise necessary to implement a comprehensive exercise program. As a result, these agencies and organizations rarely achieve optimal results when conducting exercises as the phases of an exercise are often streamlined due to the lack of an in-depth understanding of the exercise planning process.By marrying decades of real-world response and exercise planning experience, Price and Hicks, both Master Exercise Practitioners, offer an in-depth and unique perspective on exercise design and development, conduct, evaluation, and improvement planning. As such, this textbook takes a holistic approach to the exercise planning process by providing insight into the need for a systematic exercise doctrine and methodology the rationale for a comprehensive exercise program a look at exercise design and conduct considerations, as well as pitfalls a tried and true eight-step exercise planning process best practices for exercise control and simulation the reasoning and best practices for implementing a systematic exercise evaluation process and a compendium of exercise job aids to assist exercise practitioners as they navigate the different, yet interconnected, phases of an exerciseTo encourage not only comprehension but also retention knowledge, a pedagogical approach to the chapters encompasses an area of focus, what you will learn, outcomes, a chapter narrative, key terms, review questions, and an application activity. To assist those who wish to adopt this text in the classroom, PowerPoint slides, and support materials are available for download via an instructor support website. Designed for use both in the classroom and in the field by exercise planning practitioners, this textbook offers an unparalleled and unique structure to assist with the exercise design and development, conduct, evaluation, and improvement planning processes. Therefore, this textbook is an absolute must-have resource for homeland security, emergency/disaster management, crisis management, and public administration curriculums in higher education, as well as for exercise planning teams and practitioners.