What is readiness?
Before a large event, the organisers will usually conduct a readiness programme. This readiness programme consists of readiness exercises or “Activities” which vary from simple table-top discussions, often along with local authority/H&S stakeholders, to a range of large-scale test events involving thousands of people.
The Workflow
Generally, the following steps will be taken:
Capabilities are acknowledged and listed. These are the things which need to be tested and checked for readiness, and can be pieces of equipment, roles performed by individuals or groups, policies and procedures, etc. These capabilities can be assigned to departments, venues, people and more.
Users then plan the Activities at which these capabilities can be tested. These Activities can also be assigned further information, such as a location, department, owner, and date.
Users will then match up which capabilities are to be tested at which activities, which creates the Evaluations. Once these evaluations are set up, the Activities begin. Detailed feedback and GRAB results are given for each evaluation and any lessons learned are captured.
These lessons produce a set of actions that, once completed, will improve the readiness of that capability. Lessons are 'thoughts' or learnings which produce actions, which are tasks that must be carried out for this capability to pass at this evaluation in the future.
The same capabilities might be tested repeatedly in evaluations at different activities (but not all capabilities at all activities).
The event is ‘Ready’ when all these capabilities are tested successfully (or for those that can’t be tested, some other form of safeguards are in place).