Running Simulation #2

This section offers guidance on the actual running of ECB Simulation #2. The section is organized according to the sequencing of the simulation exercise sessions run on Day One (the simulation exercise day.)

The simulation calendar generally runs as follows:

Welcome & Instructions

Ideally, you should start this session at 08:00 to end the day at 17:00. If this is not possible, aim for a 09:00start: starting at the “top of the hour” will greatly facilitate the timing of simulation mem o traffic delivery.

Use the Simulation Overheads PowerPoint File to provide guidance as follows:

• Explain objectives.
• Hand out the “Participant Briefing Note” .
• Explain “scenario” (i.e. NGO representatives are gathered in the capital city to conduct a contingency planning exercise).
• Identify external stakeholder roles and their purpose.
• Present various techniques of information flow.
• Explain use of message form. Explain routing of form copies.
• Emphasize participants should try to get real data and apply minimum standards to their reports, proposals, and other submissions.
• Explain simulation calendar and meaning of “Hour Zero” (that this is a time to prepare for emergency – not to “relax”.
• Hand out the “Hour Zero” task sheet and explain the preparedness assignment they are expected to undertake.
• Appoint a coordination “leader” from the participants – this is the person who will receive and distribute incoming memo traffic. This person should be agreed with senior managers in advance.

Hour Zero

• Ensure that the coordination leader engages the participants in the Hour Zero contingency planning task
• Take the external stakeholders to another room, give them their role guides, and explain that they should play their roles as they think best (within reason – i.e. withing the general parameters of their role guides.) Note to them that some have the aim of trying to ensure that good and effective coordination takes place among the NGOs; others have an interest in ensuring that individual NGOs work closely with them rather than through the coordination process.
• Go over the various emergency scenarios with the stakeholders. Tell them not to talk about the specific emergency scenarios with participants until they actually happen.
• Tell the Big Donor: S/he should decide on a “pot of funds” available for the emergency (presumably in the US$5 – 10 million range for an emergency involving a few hundred thousand affected people). S/he should feel free to release funds or withhold them depending upon the quality of proposals/reports submitted by participants
• Tell the Government Agency Representative: S/he should overseee a nationwide coordination process (apart from the inter-NGO coordination process ongoing in the conference room.) S/he may decide to control this overall coordination process or leave it to the UN. Sh/e may be very restrictive vis a vis the participants or leave them to respond however they see fit. S/he should not hesitate to call NGOs into meetings to discuss the emergency and try to get the NGOs to conduct the response as s/he sees fit.
• Tell the UN Coordinator (OCHA or UNHCR): S/he should try to get the NGOs involved in the UN’s efforts: response, cluster coordination, etc. The idea is to add complexity to the decisions that the NGOs will make with regard to participating in the emergency response.
• Tell the Journalist: S/he will have to produce at least one story every hour. S/he should have her/his articles written (in the simulation administration office ) by twenty minutes before every hour to enable editing, printing and distribution before the hour is up. S/he may be a very responsible journalist – or not. Tell her/him to visit the sites where the assessment photos and quotes are displayed to get an overview of the situation.
• Tell the other roleplayers, if any, to follow the guidance in their role guides.
• Deliver the Hour Zero Memos (Management memos beginning with MM 0 according to schedule throughout the hour.

Hours One through Five

• Deliver the Hour One through Five Memos (Management memos beginning with MM 1 to MM 5 according to schedule throughout the hour.
• If there have been no assessment teams deployed by the middle – end of hour two, urge the coordination leader to try to convince the NGOs to get a coordinated assessment team “on the road.” Make sure the coordination leader understands that there are sites at the training venue simulating the affected areas; indicate to her/him where the “affected areas” (the assessment sites) are in the simulation.
• As you receive your yellow copies of message forms, use the Memo Tracking Form to note that assigned tasks have been completetd, whether or not the response is worth noting in the debriefing sessions, and any comment you have regarding the quality of the response.
• Note: If your receive both the white and yellow copies of a Message form, this means the message has been written expressly to you; you should pay special attention to these.
• Make sure the journalist(s) are circulating and interviewing the participants and roleplayers. Ensure they writing their articles on the computer every hour by twenty minutes before the hour (if they are slow typists, urge them to start writing at 30 minutes past each hour. You should then review, edit, “publish” (print), and distribute one copy of the newspaper per participant; the goal is to publish the Simulation Times every hour. Keep the newspaper to one page only to facilitate printing and distribution.
• Monitor participant meetings and activities, and feel free to generate additional memos and tasks as needed.
• Monitor the coordination leader. If s/he is handling the pressures of the job, fine. If s/he wants to be relieved of her/his duties, there is absolutely no problem in “re-assigning” coordination leadership to another participant.  
• Communicate regularly with the external stakeholders/roleplayers – the journalist(s) in particular - to stay abreast of new developments. Try to be aware particularly of developments that seem to foster (or hinder) achievement of simulation objectives. Jot these down for use in the debriefing sessions.
• Intervene as needed if participants seem unsure of procedures.
• At the end of Hour Five (or whatever the last hour of your simluation is in the event that you are running an abridged version), tell participants and roleplayers the simulation is over.
• Hand out the “Personal Reflection Sheet. Tell participants to take their break, write their responses to the questions, and bring their reflections to the conference room in one hour (normally16:00.) Tell the participants that the reflections are “their own”, that the “Personal Reflection Sheets” will not be collected, but that they should try to spend some time reflecting in order to preserve their experience for the coming day of debriefing

Break & Personal Reflection

This hour includes time for (a) the afternoon coffee/tea break and (b) participants to write their responses to the personal reflection sheet which you should have handed out at the end of Hour Five.

• Set up the conference room seating for the Venting session (See Section 7 of this Guide.)
• Collect the images displayed at the Assessment Mission sites (assuming you may want to keep these printed images for future simulations.)

Venting (or “De-pressurisation”)

The Venting session is held on the simulation exercise day - immediately after the hour devoted to afternoon break and personal reflection. “Venting” – sometimes called “de-pressurisation” – is the process of releasing the emotional tensions and stress that some of the participants tend to build up during the simulation. It is not intended to be an analysis of the simulation; rather it is a session whose purpose is to enable participants to “come out” of their roles and to leave behind the emergency coordination scenario they have been immersed in for several hours.

Once everyone – participants, roleplayers, organisers – is seated in the “ring” (see secion on “Conference Room Setup):

• Tell the participants this is simply an opportunity for them to give their perspective on “what happened” during the exercise. Tell them that you will all analyse in detail the challenges of the simulation tomorrow, but for now you are just interested in hearing their general impressions. Note that each will have about a minute or so.
• Start anywhere in the ring and ask a participant “What happened today? What did you perceive?” After s/he speaks for a minute (less if fine as well), thank her/him, and move on to the next. “And you? What were your impressions?” There is often much humor expressed in this session. If so, laugh, encourage it, play on it if you can find a way. If a participant is relating a particularly humorous incident, you might give her/him a bit more time; this session is meant to release emotions and stress and there is no better way to do that than through the use of humor.
• After you have gone around the ring completely, remind them that they will all be involved in analysing the simulation results during the next day of debriefing, starting at 09:00 (normally). Tell them to bring their Personal Reflection Sheets to the debriefing session (you don’t have to collect these sheets; they are for the participants’ own use.)

Thank them for a good day of learning. Encourage a round of applause, and tell them they are free to leave.