- 1. How were the FEMA 2011 – 2014 Strategic Plan’s Initiatives developed?
- 2. How does the plan relate to national strategic documents and the Administrator’s priorities?
- 3. How was FEMA's "Whole Community" approach incorporated into the plan?
- 4. How was the "Maximum of Maximums" incorporated into the plan?
- 5. How will FEMA work with the emergency management team to identify and address common risks?
- 6. How will FEMA improve itself?
- 7. How will the plan influence FEMA budget requests?
- 8. How will accountability be established? How will FEMA track its progress in implementing the plan?
1. How were the FEMA 2011 – 2014 Strategic Plan’s Initiatives developed?
In December 2009, the FEMA Senior Leadership held a conference, where the leadership team identified three one-year strategic initiatives, which were championed by separate Senior Leadership officials. These initiatives were:
- Work Force Enhancement
- New Framework for Catastrophic Planning
- FEMA Capstone Doctrine (FEMA Publication 1) (PDF 2.5MB, TXT 117KB)
After the conference, it was determined the FEMA 2008 – 2013 Strategic Plan needed to be updated to better reflect internal FEMA strategies identified in the Administrator's Intent for Fiscal Year (FY) 2012 – 2016 and to support recent national level strategic documents like the President's National Security Strategy and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Quadrennial Homeland Security Review.
These documents were used by an action officer working group who, through a series of meetings, drafted a set of strategic initiatives for Senior Leadership consideration. (The working group was composed of staff from FEMA Directorates and Regions to ensure a cross section of Agency representation). Upon completion of the working group sessions, the information collected was analyzed and synthesized to be shared with Senior Leadership in one-on-one and group sessions. Senior Leadership's and the action officer working group's data were compiled and analyzed to develop a composite set of potential initiatives, which were then refined to reflect the set of initiatives included in the FEMA 2011 – 2014 Strategic Plan, listed below:
- Foster a Whole Community Approach to Emergency Management Nationally;
- Build the Nation's Capacity to Stabilize and Recover From a Catastrophic Event;
- Build Unity of Effort and Common Strategic Understanding Among the Emergency Management Team; and
- Enhance FEMA's Ability to Learn and Innovate as an Organization
2. How does the plan relate to national strategic documents and the Administrator’s priorities?
The FEMA 2011-2014 Strategic Plan builds on existing national level strategic documents and the Administrator’s 2012 – 2016 priorities. The Plan takes into account the May 2010 President’s National Security Strategy (Strengthen Security and Resilience at Home), February 2010 Department of Homeland Security Quadrennial Homeland Security Review (Mission 5: Ensuring Resilience to Disasters), and the FEMA Administrator’s Intent for FY 2012 – 2016. All of these documents recognize the importance of working as a team to strengthen the Nation’s resilience, understanding future emergency management challenges, engaging and empowering communities, and learning from exercises and real world events.
3. How was FEMA's "Whole Community" approach incorporated into the plan?
The principle of a Whole Community approach to emergency management underpins the entire Strategic Plan and is most clearly spoken to under Initiative 1, which calls for fostering a whole community approach to emergency management nationally. The Whole Community approach is based on the recognition that it takes all aspects of a community to effectively prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover from, and mitigate against any disaster. This includes the whole spectrum of emergency management partners, such as traditional and nontraditional, including volunteer, faith, and community-based organizations; the private sector; and the public, including survivors themselves.
The Strategic Plan defines several outcomes to foster a Whole Community approach to emergency management. These outcomes include institutionalizing resilience-building practices nationally that focus on local institutions, creating a body of knowledge among the emergency management team that supports a Whole Community approach, and seeding innovative, grassroots resilience-building activities. The Strategic Plan also applies the Whole Community approach to FEMA’s specific efforts to build the Nation’s capacity to stabilize and recover from a catastrophic event.
4. How was the "Maximum of Maximums" incorporated into the plan?
In December 2009, the FEMA leadership met and identified three priorities for 2010, one of which was a reshaping how we prepare for a catastrophic event. This reshaping led to the development of the “Maximum of Maximums” approach, which was to stabilize an all-hazard event within 72 hours. This Strategic Plan expands on this initiative by challenging FEMA to build the Nation’s capability to initially recover within 60 days and fully recover within five years.
FEMA has identified some initial core capabilities for stabilizing and restoring basic services and community functionality for essential city service facilities, utilities, transportation routes, schools, neighborhood retail businesses, and offices and other workplaces. This does not presume that every such facility or system would be re-opened, or that they would be operating at 100 percent of pre‐disaster levels, but that these critical systems would be back on line and local commerce would be returning.
Core Capabilities for Stabilizing or Restoring Basic Capabilities
Enable Response:
- Situational Assessment
- Public Messaging
- Command, Control, and Coordination
- Critical Communications
- Environmental Health and Safety Critical Transportation
Survivor Needs:
- On-Scene Security and Protection
- Mass Search and Rescue Operations
- Health and Medical Treatment
- Mass Care Services
- Public and Private Services and Resources
- Stabilize and Repair Essential Infrastructure
- Fatality Management Services
Restoration:
- Essential Service Facilities
- Utilities
- Transportation Routes
- Schools
- Neighborhood Retail Businesses
- Offices and Other Workplaces
5. How will FEMA work with the emergency management team to identify and address common risks?
Due to the nature of emergency management, numerous partners—including Federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial governments, the private sector, nongovernmental organizations, faith-based and community-based organizations, and the American public—are responsible for taking the actions necessary to manage risk to the Nation. Therefore, FEMA will engage these partners in building a shared perspective around risk and from that picture, identify overlapping interests and areas where joint actions is needed among multiple partners. To build unity of effort and a common strategic understanding among all the partners, FEMA will work to identify the top threats and hazards—and opportunities—across the country. This will include the conduct of Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk Assessments (THIRA) in each FEMA Region. THIRAs are intended to be tools that allow organizations at all levels of government to identify, assess, and prioritize their natural and man-made risks. These assessments are meant to facilitate the identification of capability and resource gaps, and allow organizations to track their year-to-year progress to address those gaps. THIRAs should leverage existing hazard mitigation processes, but be conducted in a reasonably standard manner so that results may be incorporated into Federal-level assessments. FEMA will use these assessments to develop regional planning assumptions and, working with its partners, identify and implement priority actions to address assumptions identified.
6. How will FEMA improve itself?
FEMA will work to improve its capability to learn from past experience, exercises, and real world events to adapt quickly to changing conditions. FEMA will develop an integrated after action review process to evaluate operational performance and work with its partners to act on and address lessons learned. FEMA will also work to support broader learning and develop opportunities for innovation for emergency managers by realigning and enhancing existing training and education programs. FEMA will also work to create structured mechanisms, including an innovation council, to promote and enable the development of creative solutions to emergency management challenges.
7. How will the plan influence FEMA budget requests?
The four initiatives articulated in the Plan will shape program/resource requirements and budget proposals for out-year budget submissions and be a significant factor in development of Resource Allocation Plan (FEMA program goals, milestones, budgets, etc.) The initiatives will also guide current FY 2011 budget execution. These initiatives should be viewed as the cornerstone for FEMA Directorates, Regions, and Offices in the development FY 2012 operating and strategic planning documents and will also influence Integrated Planning Guidance documents.
8. How will accountability be established? How will FEMA track its progress in implementing the plan?
Specifically for the Plan, FEMA will develop performance indicators and milestone schedules to report progress and monitor implementation of the four initiatives. The performance outcome and or output measurement data will be collected for analysis and evaluation annually, at a minimum. The milestone schedule information for each initiative will be collected, analyzed, and evaluated on a quarterly basis. Additionally, FEMA will use the Agency’s established performance management mechanisms to continually assess the Plan’s implementation as well as overall FEMA performance. FEMA will also use established yearly performance reporting mechanisms and FEMA component operating plans to analyze resource distribution as well as the new FEMAStat monitoring process. FEMAStat is intended to ensure that the Agency’s resources are being optimally used to achieve our mission and goals, and is modeled on the efforts of other public organizations, such as the New York City Police Department, the City of Baltimore, and the Department of Treasury. As part of this process, FEMA will hold an ongoing series of scheduled meetings with Directorates/Regions/Offices during which principal members of the FEMA leadership team, including the Deputy Administrator, will discuss, question, and debate previously analyzed performance data in each functional area.