Case Studies

Strategic Foresight Initiative for the Emergency Management Community

Challenge

The world around us is changing in ways that may have profound effects on the future of emergency and disaster management.  A shifting U.S. demographic, an aging critical infrastructure, changes in the means by which the public communicates and accesses information, fiscal health, and adaptation to climate change all could affect how FEMA and the emergency management community performs its mission.  Such changes could also significantly impact how emergency managers anticipate the best means to serve the public. 

Solution

To begin thinking more broadly about future challenges and their potential implications, HWC supported FEMA in coordinating the Strategic Foresight Initiative (SFI). The objective of SFI is to better understand how the world is changing, and how those changes may affect the future of emergency and disaster management. As an ongoing initiative, SFI aims to expand anticipatory and actionable strategic thinking and planning by engaging the diverse emergency management community in an exploration of issues, trends, and other factors that could shape the future operating environment. 

 

HWC supported FEMA by providing the tools, processes, and collaboration space to examine these issues across the broad emergency management community.  Utilizing various media, including workshops, online collaboration tools, individual meetings, and conference presentations, SFI has engaged a community of nearly 600 individuals from a wide cross-section of the emergency management sector.  Representatives of this community have identified key issues and driving forces of change that might impact emergency and disaster management, engaged in online and offline dialogue to better understand emerging trends and impacts, and through a scenario-based process, identified community-wide strategic challenges, opportunities, and needs the community will have in the future.  The goal is a shared sense of direction and urgency that drives action toward meeting our shared future needs – starting today.

Results

The combination of stakeholder engagement, community dialogue, and research has promoted information sharing and increased communication among interconnected networks throughout the emergency management community.  FEMA now uses an integrated strategic planning approach that expands its horizon to consider near, mid, and long-range strategic initiatives. Beyond FEMA, SFI’s identification of strategic challenges, opportunities, and needs, provides the emergency management community with an emerging picture of critical intersections that will inform strategic planning processes, potential future resource allocations, and eventual community wide strategies.

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• Overview
• Creating a New Grants Management Division
• Leadership Transition
• Long Range Planning: Climate Change Adaptation at DHS
• Process Documentation and Standardization
• Improved Decision Support Through Information Management
• Strategic Foresight Initiative for the Emergency Management Community