An Emergency Preparedness Planning Game

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An Emergency Preparedness Planning Game

• Murray Turoff
• Information Systems Department
• New Jersey Institute of Technology
• http/is.njit.edu/turoff
• turoff_at_njit.edu
• http//is.njit.edu

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Objectives of the Game

• Improve EP plans for unique events
• Improve threat scenario development
• Stimulate creativity for professionals
• Create Situation Awareness
• Stimulate mental rehearsal
• Encourage Critical and reflective thinking
• Refine resource and Information System
  Requirements
• Train novices

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Approach to Design of Game

• Hegelian Inquiry Process
• Opposing World Views (Plan and counter plan)
• Synergistic combinations
• Delphi Aspects
• Iteration for improvement
• Pennames
• Defense Conservative Offense Optimistic

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Simple Cycle Representation
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Totally Asynchronous Game

• Uses an group communication system such as
  WebBoard
• Initial Design avoids any special software
  additions
• Allows individual to participate at any time of
  the day from any location
• Game will last 4 to 6 weeks
• Cycle time is one-two weeks
• Individuals will likely spend three to five hours
  a week on the Web playing the game
• Everyone has a pen name and there is no way a
  person can be identified unless they divulge it
  in the comments they enter.

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Defense Team

• Objective
• Develop best possible plan given resource
  constraints
• Outputs
• Public and confidential defense plan, resource
  requests
• Includes roles, talents and equipment for
  responders
• Includes resources for added protection,
  detection, and mitigation
• Inputs
• Intelligence assessment, covert threat scenario
  leak, resource decisions

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Threat Team

• Objective
• Develop best possible offense threat given
  resource constraints
• Outputs
• Threat scenario, Resource Requests
• Includes roles and talents of operatives
• Includes equipment
• Includes event sequence for attack
• Inputs
• Intelligence assessment, covert confidential
  defense plan leak, and public defense plan

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Threat and Defense Intelligence Teams

• Objectives
• Seek useful public information
• Develop intelligence assessment of output of
  serviced team
• Analyze covert information leaks
• Has at least one member from location of each
  defense-threat combination
• Inputs
• Output of team serviced, leaks from other
  opposing group, public sources
• Outputs
• Assessment report for serviced team
• Suggest threats from public and covert sources
• Suggest useful resources

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Evaluation Group

• Objective
• Act as regulatory body on the control of the game
• Advise OGD (Overall Game Director) and TheJudge
• Duties
• Review all information communicated between
  groups
• Recommend stopping point
• Recommend resource decisions
• Considered the experts guiding and facilitating
  the game

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Roles in the Game

• O.G.D. (Overall Game Director)
• Reviews and transmits communications between the
  teams
• Answers meta process questions
• The Judge
• Evaluates and approves estimated and requested
  resources for the defense or the threat teams.
• Team Leaders
• Assigns responsibilities for tasks within team if
  not enough volunteerism
• Final choice on edits and content of reports
• General Properties
• Multiple Threat Defense Combinations
• Each Set in single location with a facility in
  that location
• An intelligence group can probably handle three
  defense or threat groups
• Anywhere from 20-72 players is range for current
  technology

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Basic Design Concepts

• Every Threat-Defense team combination is dealing
  with a particular facility in the location they
  are in (e.g. nuclear plant in NYCity metropolitan
  area for NJIT player teams)
• All combinations deal with the same type of
  facility
• A single dual intelligence team set should be
  able to handle one to three locations
• Each team has a private conference to carry out
  its tasks
• Each team has templates for filling in the
  details of what it has to prepare as reports

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Generality of the Game

• A threat can be
• A terrorist action
• A natural disaster
• A Competitive company threat
• etc
• Use of competitive rounds to stir creativity in
  improving both plans and scenarios against which
  to evaluate the plan
• Collaboration of teams dealing with a similar
  problem to help good ideas to emerge in a large
  scale consensus
• Threat team can be designing the properties and
  details of a competitive product, a flood, or an
  earthquake

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Second Prototype Underway

• Properties
• Graduate Students
• Facility is the NJIT Computer and networking
  Systems
• Mission of the threat is to discredit the
  institution
• Some results so far
• Improvements needed in instructions
• Dynamic modification of some instructions
• Took three weeks for first round
• Have made spy leaks at any appropriate time and
  not tied to game cycle
• Making resource decisions whenever the request is
  ready
• Led to redesign in this presentation
• Improved templates for details of events within a
  scenario or a response plan

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Some Future Plans

• Field trials of professionals this summer
• Would like twenty to thirty volunteers from this
  meeting for a trial.
• Attack objective might be for this meeting held
  again at this location
• Development plans
• Design a quasi experimental field trial
• Besides current version, develop some specific
  computer aids to automate the communication
  process
• Develop a system to automate the resulting threat
  scenarios for playing a response version of the
  threats emerging from this process.
• Useful for training

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The End

• Questions or Comments?