PPOST was developed within the ICS Canada suite of tools. PPOST stands for Priorities, Problems, Objectives, Strategies & Tactics. It is a simple method of systematic inquiry ideally suited to advance planning applications. Consider it management by objectives on steroids. It can use any fixed set of organizational priorities filtered against an activity or list of activities for the inquiry. A small team from British Columbia have modified PPOST slightly to facilitate the inquiry and with the use of templates produce an initial draft recovery plan for any natural disaster in less than 72 hours. This plan basically identifies the immediate/short/medium/and long term objectives that give the recovery management team its starting point and includes the structure of that team, where to source the resources required to get started, and then attaches an initial budget estimate. Once the recovery team is in place, PPOST can be used to develop longer term planning. The BC team has developed an AI-enabled PPOST tool that uses a local language model that has been trained in actual PPOST recovery plan results. A definition of insanity is doing things the same way repeatedly and expecting different results every time.

What Will the Audience Learn:

The audience will be introduced to the PPOST methodology and how it can be successfully applied to deliver an initial natural disaster recovery plan in less than 72 hours. They will see examples of an actual plan developed for a recent historic flood event. They will learn how to set-up and facilitate a PPOST session, how to develop the initial recovery plan with immediate/short/medium/long term objectives, a recovery organization chart, a list of resources required and where to source them, and how to develop an initial budget estimate for the recovery organization. They will receive a step-by-step guide on how to set-up and facilitate a PPOST session for disaster recovery planning and a guide on writing an initial recovery plan, both of which they can use in their organization’s suite of emergency management planning tools. As a bonus, they will get a look at a new AI-enabled PPOST tool.

Course Level: Intermediate

About the Presenter

Steve “Newt” Newton combines over 37 years of operational emergency management experience with strong systems thinking and formal education in strategic foresight to provide unique operational and strategic consulting services to local/provincial/federal governments, First Nation communities and organizations, and private sector organizations. This includes 23 years in British Columbia (BC) wildfire operations, 7 years as a regional manager at EMBC (now EMCR), and 7 years in the private sector. He has led and/or supported after-action reviews for some of the more prominent events in recent BC history. He maintains a good working knowledge of emerging and converging technologies with a strategic view to how they can be applied to the emergency management domain. Newt with a small team of 2 or 3 can typically turn out an initial disaster recovery plan in less than 72 hours. Newt is generally considered the most active PPOST method practitioner in BC and is recognized as an ICS 400 level Train-the-Trainer through ICS Canada.