Easier said than done - the handling of the development areas from SAMÖ-KKÖ 2011

How identified shortfalls and weaknesses should be used to contribute to development and improvement is a challenge in most exercise activities. During and after the large-scale multi-sector cooperation exercise SAMÖ-KKÖ 2011 a series of seminars were carried out where the participating organizations identified a number of improvement areas. A subset of these areas was later tested in the follow-up exercise SAMÖ Fokus 2014. In the spring of 2014, FOI was commissioned by the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) to survey if and in applicable cases how the participating actors had worked with the identified improvement areas. To do this FOI used inter alia interviews and a questionnaire. The respondents generally stressed the importance of exercises, especially complex exercises. They were also generally positive to a follow-up exercise such as SAMÖ Fokus 2014. On the other hand, much of the actors' internal development processes seem to a great extent independent from the identified improvement areas. Many actors stated that they had worked with the shortfalls that the improvement areas highlighted, but only a few saw this as a direct result of the method with improvement areas introduced in SAMÖ-KKÖ 2011. The improvement areas from SAMÖ-KKÖ 2011 in many cases seemed to have been almost invisible within the actors' organizations. For about three quarters of the improvement areas, the respondents claimed that they have carried out, or are planning, actions. Yet, about three fifths of these actions had begun already before SAMÖ-KKÖ 2011. This shows that many of the shortfalls that the improvement areas highlighted were well-known before the exercise. The report discusses how the process to identify, analyze and to the actors hand over the improvement areas can be developed through among other things clarifying the term "improvement area" and deepening the analysis of the identified areas. Furthermore it discusses the need for linking these areas to other development concepts and to other development and guidance processes as well as the need for creating ways for following up the work on these improvement areas, in order to support the actors' development processes. The report also analyzes how the impact of the improvement areas could be increased also outside of the relatively small group of actors participating in the actual exercise, inter alia through implementing especially important areas more widely in the crisis management system.