Category Archives: CONTINUITY OF OPERATIONS

5 Reasons Your Agency Should Have a Smartphone App

25 Thursday Jul 2013

Posted by in #SMEM, CAMPUS SAFETY, SECURITY, & PREPAREDNESS, CONTINUITY OF OPERATIONS, EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT, EMERGENCY NOTIFICATION, HOMELAND SECURITY

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July 2013 IAEM Bulletin graphic

“There’s an app for that” has become a very popular phrase–and not just from teenagers. Apps (short for applications) are programs designed to run on smartphones and/or tablets–even without a phone or data connection. In January, Apple announced that they have sold over 40 billion apps for their iOS devices (such as the iPhone and iPad). Clearly apps are a huge part of information-sharing and reaching our target population, here are some reasons why your agency should considered designing and developing your own app:

 1. Apps are popular

In June 2013, the Pew Research Center reported its findings that 56% of Americans have smartphones capable of downloading apps–up from just 35% in 2011. Additionally, the number of Americans without a cell phone is down to just 9% of the population. According to research from New Relic, the average smartphone has over three dozen apps (forty-one to be exact) and the average smartphone user checks her phone 150 times per day with 127 minutes per day spent on apps. It is estimated that by the end of 2013, there will be 1.82 billion active smartphones globally and within the next two years, almost 100 billion apps are predicted to have been downloaded by smartphone users.

2. Keep your constituents informed

Unlike a webpage, when content or information is updated in an app, the app can send an alert to the smartphone user to acknowledge the update (also called “push” alerts). During an emergency, it is possible to also send direct messages to users through the app. While not robust enough for a sole means of emergency notification, push alerts or push notifications can be one of the tools emergency managers use for notifying the public. Additionally, if your agency includes plans in its app, app users will always have the most up-to-date plans. When posted on the internet, users can sometimes stumble upon an older version of a plan that has been saved by a search engine or re-posted by local groups, etc. With an app, there is unfiltered access to the most up-to-date information (without the fear of cached versions of older plans recirculating during an emergency).

3. Productivity without connectivity

When disconnected from wifi or wireless data feeds, apps can still function because they have the ability to save information to a user’s smartphone from the previous time an update was downloaded or a connection was available. If your agency wishes to provide any type of guidance for constituents if wireless connectivity is degraded, apps are a good solution. For items like evacuation routes, shelter guides, checklists, and other steady-state documentation, the apps can include those documents and simply update any of the documentation when the user connects to the internet–yet still maintains a copy on the user’s smartphone for when internet connectivity is unavailable.

4. Longer Reach

Since almost all smartphone users keep their phones nearby (how else would they be able to check their phones 150 times per day?), the smartphone is a better targeted device for distributing information than a laptop or desktop computer. Apps are built for ease of use–especially in transit or on the go. For emergency managers, our intended audience during an emergency are those constituents who can be empowered with the right information to help themselves and their community. Oftentimes, information is needed immediately–not when a person can find a computer nearby. Thus, the app is a perfect way of presenting actionable, executable information in a timely manner in a reliable format.

 5. Deeper Integration

As the operating systems (OS) of mobile devices become more advanced, apps are becoming better integrated with other programs on smartphones, such as maps, the address book, GPS, text messaging, and social media. The benefit of emergency management apps would be the deeper integration with other platforms. In a large-scale disaster, an emergency management app could open up a smartphone’s maps app to plot a course to safety. Once safe, an emergency management app could recommend using social media (rather than a phone call–which ties up limited bandwidth) to let family members and friends know that the user is safe. Deeper integration with reminders, calendar appointments, and other future mobile platform developments can serve to promote preparedness, enhance dynamic, safe responses, and encourage more robust recovery from disaster.

Screenshot 2012.09.07 12.06.45

While not every emergency management agency is ready to release their own app, agencies such as Washington, DC’s Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency (HSEMA), Virginia’s Department of Emergency Management (VDEM), and even FEMA have already released apps for specific use during emergencies. Will your agency be next?

The Integrated Planning System (IPS): The Best Kept Secret in Planning

09 Monday Jan 2012

Posted by in CONTINUITY OF OPERATIONS, EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT, HOMELAND SECURITY, PREPAREDNESS, RECOVERY, RESPONSE

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Never heard of IPS?
In December 2003, Homeland Security Presidential Directive (HSPD) 8 was signed by the President, and, among other things, included a requirement for the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to develop an integrated planning system (IPS) (released in January 2009)

IPS was designed to include six areas of importance: national planning doctrine, a system for identifying courses of action, a standard method for incorporating lessons learned, a process for linking tribal, local, state, and regional plans with Federal planning, a process for fostering vertical and horizontal integration of planning with all levels of government, and finally, a guide for for all-hazards planning. Incredibly, IPS accomplished its mission! 

NIMS references IPS, explaining that “while it is recognized that jurisdictions and organizations will develop multiple types of plans, such as response, mitigation, and recovery plans, it is essential that these plans be coordinated and complement one another. State, tribal, and local governments are encouraged to comply with the Integrated Planning System…” The only problem: IPS is so technical that few can stomach it. IPS never really caught on. Few people have implemented it.

How I learned to love IPS:
After Hurricane Ike in 2008, I was a contractor for FEMA using a draft version of IPS to perform strategic recovery planning at the JFO in Austin, TX. As a planning geek, I really like IPS. I liked it so much, that after our team wrapped up in Austin, I continued work at FEMA HQ in DC to develop a strategic recovery planning toolkit based on operationalizing IPS.

I discovered that IPS held a powerful framework and process for planning that provided insight to some the problems I’d experience with planning. As any planner will tell you, in large organizations, one plan seems to beget another plan, which begets yet another plan. Developing a hierarchy of plans is important for vertical integration–especially for large agencies or organizations with complex missions. But without IPS, there was no standardization in the Federal government emergency management plans.

But at less than 100 pages, IPS was a very brief adaptation of military planning doctrine, mainly the Joint Operational Planning and Execution System (JOPES). JOPES is the framework by which the US armed services plan operations together. For example, let’s say a mission in Adversariland was needed that required the Air Force to provide air cover, the Navy to soften beach defenses, Marines to create a beachhead, and soldiers to capture and hold a certain area. That “operation” is considered “joint” because it includes several different branches of the military. In my opinion, if JOPES is able to get marines, soliders, sailors, airmen, and coasties to all talk to one another and plan operations (even if it is only implemented at the highest ranks), it seems like it must have lessons that civilians could learn as well.

Vertical Integration:
In order to better understand IPS, I researched JOPES by reading publicly accessible JOPES training documents and manuals, such as the user guide for JOPES and the precursor to Joint Publication 5-0. JOPES can help civilian planners understand the various levels of planning (see above for the colorful table I made) and how plans that jumble all the levels together are poorly written and disjointed. A plan that drops from strategic level to tactical level is like an elevator without brakes. Vertical integration among complex, disparate organizations takes a strong foundation (found in IPS).

Whole Community = Comprehensive EM + Vertical Integration
For the FEMA “Whole Community” approach to work (which, at its core is decades of refining “comprehensive emergency management”), vertical integration is required. How can local plans integrate with regional plans, which integrate with state-level plans, which integrate with Federal plans and the 15 National Planning Scenarios? An integrated planning system accomplishes this audacious feat. Just when this whole system was about to work and progress the “whole community” ideology…

IPS…Gone, but not Forgotten…
At the end of March 2011, Presidential Policy Directive-8 (National Preparedness) was signed, rescinding HSPD-8 (the foundation of IPS). Although PPD-8 calls for the development of the National Preparedness Goal (released in Sept 2011) and the National Preparedness System (description released in Nov 2011), the foundational elements of IPS are lost. In its place are core capabilities, which are generic program elements, such as Planning, Public Warning and Coordination, and Operational Coordination. While I understand the change and I can appreciate the gained ease-of-use of some parts of the National Preparedness System (by the way, now we’re going to be getting National Planning Scenarios and the National Preparedness System confused…), I feel a tinge of loss for IPS. IPS is sound planning doctrine and provides an introduction to planning that the next generation of planners and emergency managers ought to have the benefit of learning.

Let’s hope the National Planning System can catch the attention of more planners and become the accepted standard that IPS wasn’t. If “whole community” is to be a reality, it will take a strong, integrated planning system.