Introduction

The Corona pandemic as well as the recent IPCC report (2021) are two examples that demonstrate crisis preparedness as an inevitable cornerstone in the development of resilient and sustainable societies. Community resilience can be defined as "the existence, development, and engagement of community resources by community members to thrive in an environment characterized by change, uncertainty, unpredictability, and surprise" (Magis, 2010). This makes resilience particularly integral to social sustainability. Strategies for societal resilience include training of leaders and joint preparation with, and training of, potential crisis actors in a region (Boin & McConnell, 2007). Crisis training strengthens capabilities that are important in the various stages of crisis management, clarifies responsibilities/roles and available resources, supports informal networks and test contingency plans (Steigenberger 2016; McConnell & Drennan 2006). By strengthening crisis management capabilities, training can also enhance adaptive capacity and agency, key parts of community resilience (Berkes & Ross, 2013).

Crisis training also comes with challenges, e.g. having sufficient resources, and accomplishing collaboration with actors within and between organizations (Field et al. 2012; Sniezek et al. 2002) In addition, van Laere and Lindblom (2018) stress the need for recurrent training in diverse training formats. Computer based training has been suggested as a resource-efficient and flexible complement (Lukosch et al., 2012). In this presentation we discuss opportunities and challenges, from a sustainability perspective, when using digitalised crisis management training. 

Research approach 

A Learning Management System (LMS) based method for tabletop exercises have been developed in two R&D projects with a design science research (DSR) approach (cf. Peffers et al., 2007). Several empirical methods have been utilized, e.g. in-depth interviews, surveys, document analysis, observations of workshops and exercises. In this presentation we mainly build on interviews and surveys following two workshops ("test exercises") in 2021 with 1) experts at The Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB), and 2) project stakeholders respectively. 

Findings

Experiences from the project(s) show that crisis actors request more frequent, easy-to-use, and reusable exercises. In addition, scarce resources in public organisations, and climate change mitigation, put pressure on crisis preparedness activities to be economically and environmentally sustainable. An LMS enable efficient reuse of exercises´ structure and content. Moreover, an LMS can assist participation, e.g. by allowing distributed training, and asynchronous modules where participants can give input when time provides. Also, the possibility of individual reflection assignments, and immersive content (e.g. videos) are appreciated. 

Opportunities

By facilitating for communities and a wider variety of crisis management actors to train, the LMS method can contribute to social sustainability. Moreover, the LMS method can contribute to economic sustainability by reuse of exercises, and thus sharing of resources. Furthermore, distributed exercises decrease the need for traveling which contributes to environmental sustainability.

Challenges

Challenges identified include identifying what can, and cannot, be trained by this method. Also, there is a need for an active trainer/support for the trainees. Furthermore, there are technological challenges such as the amount of systems in use simultaneously (LMS, video conferencing, PowerPoint etc.), and use of diverse LMS in different organisations.