Riding the Wave: Applying Project Management Science in the Field of Emergency Management

Emergency managers and public safety professionals are more frequently being called on to address increasingly challenging and complex critical incidents, with a wider variety and intensity of hazards, threats, and community vulnerabilities. Much of the work that falls into the scope of emergency managers – prevention, preparedness, mitigation – is “blue sky planning” and can be contained and effectively managed within projects. This book provides a foundational project management methodology relevant to emergency management practice, and explains and demonstrates how project management can be applied in the context of emergency and public safety organizations.

Special features include:

• an initial focus on risk assessment and identification of mitigation and response planning measures;
• a clear set of better practices, using a diverse set of examples relevant to today’s emergency environment, from projects to develop emergency response exercises to application development to hazard mitigation;
• a framework for managing projects at a strategic level and how to incorporate this into an organization’s program, and presents how to develop and manage an emergency program and project portfolio; and
• suitability as both a hands-on training guide for emergency management programs and a textbook for academic emergency management programs.

This book is intended for emergency managers and public safety professionals who are responsible for developing emergency programs and plans, including training courses, job aids, computer applications and new technology, developing exercises, and for implementing these plans and components in response to an emergency event. This audience includes managers in emergency and first response functions such as fire protection, law enforcement and public safety, emergency medical services, public health and healthcare, sanitation, public works, business continuity managers, crisis managers, and all managers in emergency support functions as described by FEMA. This would include those who have responsibility for emergency management functions, even without the related title.