Info for WEBEX ii Role Players

The on-line exercise will use both pre-assigned and drop-in role players. Assignments will be finalized during the first half hour briefing/orientation session in the media room. Pre-assigned role players will include both players from Pittsburgh, and others from around the country. If you have already been assigned, think you might like to play, or just want a better understanding of how the exercise works, please review the material below. Of course, you are welcome to just observe.

Background
How to Play
Schedule
The Rules

Background
We had a very successful WEBEX last year in conjuction with the Virtual Fire & Rescue Expo. It was successful in terms of its main objective which was to demonstrate that this medium can be used for an exercise. It was also successful in that it was very well attended, with at one point 77 persons logged on and participating and in terms of the reaction of the players. It was a blast! While that may seem a minor consideration, the point there is if players are enthusiastic about doing this, they might exercise more often! Our larger objective is to demonstrate coordination between an on-scene incident command, an EOC, and communication with the public. The idea is to help folks understand one another's needs.

We will be playing in 3 rooms -- an EOC (Emergency Operations Center) room, an ICP room (Incident Command Post), and a Media Room. Each room will have a COMM officer who is part of the exercise team. The COMM officer will introduce the major exercise events in each room as a message from somebody. They will also handle the messaging between rooms.

We will also have a Security Officer. Unfortunately, there is only one available, so if you need security, you request your COMM officer to find him. The Security Officer will actually bounce disruptive persons from the chat.

We will also have an Evaluator in each room. They will be looking for the completion of expected actions, or substantially completed actions per event, and will let the exercise controller know. She will then advance the exercise based on completed actions, however, we may also skip forward based on the available time, and to keep things interesting. The exercise is advanced with the introduction of the next major event.

How to Play
All the players are going to get are the major events in the form of messages from their COMM Officer. It will then be up to the players to take the appropriate response actions by initiating a message. For example, let us say that the first message rec'd by the EOC is a sketchy description of the incident from the ICP (which will be established at the opening). The PIO in the media room may also be informed by a reporter of the occurrence of the incident. One would expect the PIO to request further details from the EOC, who is requesting further info from the ICP. One would then hope that the ICP would respond to that request.

The event messages that go into each room will NOT be identical. One room may get more info than another so you have to find out what each other knows. You may also get some photos or other graphics to view during the exercise which may also provide some further clues to action. This is done through a hyperlink in the chat, which when clicked on, will load the corresponding graphic in a browser window. After the first one, the browser window may not come to the top automatically, so you may need to bring it forward by clicking on the corresponding button on your Windows status bar at the bottom of your screen.

The role players will drive the action between major events. This may be the hardest part to grasp. They discuss various alternatives, come to a decision, which may be to make a request, and then initiate an action by asking the COMM to send a message. If they need to take an action that is not represented by someone in another room, then just tell the COMM officer to send a message to the appropriate organization. This would count as a completed action. Requests within reason will assume to be granted. The role player with the appropriate authority per the Pittsburgh plans should initiate actions.

Some excerpts from the Pittsburgh plans and SOP's are posted on our our Workshop page. Players will need to review at least portions of the EOP if you are not from Pittsburgh, and quite possibly, even if you are. Please note for those of you from a City Manger/Council form of government that Pittsburgh has a strong mayor form of government.

The most technically difficult part of using the live chat for an exercise is that there is a bottleneck at the COMM officer that is not realistic. We are sticking with this technique for 2 reasons: inter-room messaging is not very conveniently set up in the software, and is especially difficult with many participants coming and going, but the main reason is nobody else playing or observing will know what is going on if private messaging between players were used. We have no other facilities such as a status boards to track actions. Therefore role players need to take it easy on overwhelming the COMM officer with requests. Not only will he be sending messages, he will be trying to receive and relay messages into the room as well, and watching for the next interject.

Make messages specific to an individual role player. For example, the Mayor may tell the COMM Officer, "Send a message to the PIO that we are conducting an evacuation within a one-mile radius." if that were appropriate to the situation based on previous communications and decisions.

Schedule
We will assemble in the Media Room at 8:00 PM EST on Dec. 3. We will have approx. 30 minutes of introduction and roll taking. As the roll is taken of pre-assigned role players, they are dismissed to their duty station. While waiting for the exercise to begin, please introduce yourself to the other players including your assigned role, in case they preceded you to the room. We may also do some on the spot role playing assignments based on who shows up or doesn't!

Then at 8:30 the first event message will be introduced and we will play for an hour and a half, until 10:00 PM. It will go very quickly! At 10:00 PM we will introduce an all clear message, whether it is or not!

At that point we will all reassemble in the Media Room for a "debrief," when we will informally discuss our reactions to the experience.

Rules
There are very few rules of the game.

One is that you must stay in your assigned room with some minor exceptions. For example, if it is decided that it would be a good idea for the Mayor to address reporters in the Media Room, (assuming he is present and playing!), then he may go for that purpose and return at the request of the PIO.

Another is to do all your communication online, no off-line conversations or private messaging between rooms.

Most importantly, relax and have fun! Take it seriously but not TOO seriously! Don't sweat the small stuff or get too picky about details!

For further info, to request an assignment, or ask questions, you may contact Amy Sebring, asebring@emforum.org .

We are very much looking forward to this year's event, and having you participate with us. We think you will find it a memorable experience!