Arching from Function to Form—Important Design Elements of Simulation Exercises (SimEx) in Emergency Response and Disaster Risk Management

Abstract

With Rasmussen’s abstraction hierarchy as starting point, the present article focuses on understanding some of the aspects guiding the development of a simulation exercise (SimEx) from a multi-faceted perspective, based on interviews and post-exercise evaluations conducted with both exercise designers and participants. The results show that, in order to achieve its overarching objective, an exercise must fulfill a wide range of “functions”, which in turn can take various kinds of “forms” or actual representations in the physical world. The paper discusses a number of identified required functions of a SimEx, sometimes labeled as design elements, and furthermore elaborates on differences and specific requirements at form level, e.g., virtual vs. physical exercises.

Keywords

• simulation exercise
• multi-faceted perspective
• Rasmussen’s abstraction hierarchy
• virtual simulations
• disaster risk management
• on-site exercises