HSEEP: Exercise Cycle, Types, and Key Documents

The Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program, known as HSEEP, is the national framework FEMA maintains to standardize how emergency response organizations plan, conduct, evaluate, and learn from preparedness exercises.¹ It gives government agencies, first responders, and their whole-community partners a shared vocabulary, a common methodology, and a repeating five-phase cycle that turns exercise performance into concrete improvements in readiness. For most state, local, tribal, and territorial agencies, following HSEEP is also a condition of federal preparedness funding.

The Five-Phase Cycle

HSEEP is built around a loop of five phases, and every document, meeting, and role in the program lives inside one of them.²

Program Management. Senior leaders set priorities, allocate resources, and coordinate across jurisdictions to sustain a long-term exercise program.
Design and Development. The planning team translates those priorities into a specific exercise: choosing the type, writing objectives, building scenarios, and preparing documentation.
Conduct. The exercise runs, whether that means a facilitated discussion around a conference table or a full field deployment of personnel and equipment.
Evaluation. Evaluators assess performance against the predefined objectives, documenting strengths and shortfalls against target capabilities.
Improvement Planning. Findings become corrective actions with assigned owners and deadlines, feeding back into the next round of program management.

Skip any phase and the point of HSEEP breaks down. The cycle is what converts an exercise from a training event into a driver of real readiness.

The Seven Types of HSEEP Exercises

HSEEP recognizes seven exercise types across two categories. The right choice depends on what an organization is testing and where it sits on the preparedness curve. A jurisdiction that hasn’t validated its plan in a tabletop has no business jumping straight to a full-scale deployment.²

Discussion-Based Exercises

Discussion-based exercises focus on plans, policies, and procedures through facilitated conversation rather than real-time action. They’re the right starting point when a plan is new or has changed significantly.

Seminar. An orientation session using presentations, panel discussions, or case studies to give participants a shared understanding of authorities, strategies, or new plans.
Workshop. More interactive than a seminar, focused on producing something tangible like a draft plan, a new procedure, or a mutual-aid agreement.
Tabletop Exercise (TTX). A scenario-driven discussion where a facilitator introduces problems and the group talks through how it would respond, exposing gaps in plans or coordination.
Game. A structured competitive or cooperative simulation governed by rules and data that pushes participants to make consequential decisions.

Operations-Based Exercises

Operations-based exercises move beyond discussion and validate whether plans actually work under pressure.

Drill. A supervised, single-function activity such as practicing a radio protocol, testing decontamination procedures, or validating a new piece of equipment.
Functional Exercise (FE). A real-time test of management and coordination functions. Staff work in their actual roles from a command post or emergency operations center, while the movement of field resources is simulated.
Full-Scale Exercise (FSE). The most complex and resource-intensive type. Multiple agencies coordinate in real time with actual deployment of personnel, equipment, and resources.²

A sound program progresses through these types deliberately: discussion-based exercises develop and refine plans; operations-based exercises validate them. Skipping the progression usually means discovering basic planning failures during a full-scale exercise, when the cost of discovering them is highest.

Key Documents in an HSEEP Exercise

HSEEP produces a distinct set of documents, and each one has a specific job in the cycle. FEMA’s PrepToolkit platform provides the templates.

Integrated Preparedness Plan (IPP)

The IPP is the long-range strategy document. It replaced the older Multi-Year Training and Exercise Plan and captures an organization’s priorities for planning, organizing, equipping, training, and exercising over a multi-year period.² It’s built from Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment (THIRA) data plus findings from previous After-Action Reports, and it’s finalized through an Integrated Preparedness Planning Workshop (IPPW), where stakeholders reconcile capabilities, senior leader guidance, open corrective actions, funding, and scheduling.

Situation Manual and Exercise Plan

For a tabletop, planners produce a Situation Manual containing the scenario, discussion questions, and reference materials. For operations-based exercises, the Exercise Plan defines the scope, objectives, logistics, and administrative requirements. A Controller and Evaluator Handbook gives the people running and observing the exercise their instructions, including the evaluation criteria and observation forms they’ll use.²

Master Scenario Events List (MSEL)

The MSEL is the exercise script. Each entry specifies an event number, scenario time, inject type and delivery method, the entity delivering it, the intended recipient, message content, the expected participant response, and the linked exercise objective. That level of granularity lets evaluators measure whether participants responded the way plans say they should, and pinpoint where a breakdown occurred if they didn’t.²

Exercise Objectives

Objectives in HSEEP must be SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.² “Test communications” gives evaluators nothing to measure. “Establish interoperable radio communications between fire, EMS, and law enforcement within 15 minutes of initial dispatch” does. Each objective links to a specific core capability from the National Preparedness Goal, which is how a local exercise ties into the national preparedness picture.³

After-Action Report and Improvement Plan (AAR/IP)

After the exercise, evaluators combine their observation data, participant feedback forms, and Hot Wash notes into a draft AAR/IP. The report analyzes performance against each objective and its linked core capabilities, documents strengths and areas for improvement, and lists corrective actions. Every corrective action is itself SMART and identifies the primary responsible organization, a point of contact, and start and completion dates.²

Before the AAR/IP is finalized, stakeholders convene an After-Action Meeting (AAM) to review the draft findings, validate the analysis, debate corrective actions, and agree on deadlines and ownership. This is distinct from the Hot Wash held immediately after play. Open corrective actions from the AAR/IP then feed back into the next IPPW, which is how HSEEP guards against the common failure mode of a filed report that changes nothing.

Roles During an Exercise

HSEEP defines roles with specific expectations, and they don’t overlap.²

Players perform their actual emergency response roles. They’re the ones being tested.
Actors simulate roles like disaster casualties to add realism. They sign liability waivers before participating, receive a briefing on safety procedures and their assigned symptoms, and carry symptomology cards describing what they’re portraying. For a minor, a parent or guardian signs the waiver.
Controllers manage the flow and pace of the exercise. They deliver MSEL injects, keep activities in scope, and can pause or redirect play if needed. The lead controller issues the Start-of-Exercise (StartEx) and End-of-Exercise (EndEx) commands.
Evaluators observe and record performance using Exercise Evaluation Guides (EEGs) aligned to core capabilities. They remain neutral; an evaluator who steps in to help a struggling team has contaminated the data.
The Safety Controller, a separate role from scenario controllers, has authority to halt play if conditions become dangerous. Safety responsibilities include real-world medical support outside the exercise scenario, site security coordination, monitoring weather and environmental hazards, and information security for sensitive materials.

In complex operations-based exercises, a Simulation Cell (SimCell) staffed by controllers represents organizations that aren’t physically playing. If the scenario calls for a state agency to issue an evacuation order but that agency isn’t participating, a SimCell controller delivers the message by phone, radio, or email at the right time and through the right channel.

When objectives have been addressed or time expires, EndEx is called and a player Hot Wash immediately follows. The Hot Wash is a rapid-feedback discussion of what worked and what didn’t while details are fresh. It isn’t the formal evaluation; participants also complete Participant Feedback Forms that feed into the AAR/IP.

Federal Grant Compliance

For most state, local, tribal, and territorial agencies, HSEEP isn’t optional. Recipients of the Homeland Security Grant Program (HSGP) and Tribal Homeland Security Grant Program (THSGP) must develop and maintain a progressive exercise program consistent with HSEEP guidance in support of the National Exercise Program.⁴ Two deadlines matter most:

The current IPP must be submitted to FEMA by January 31 each year.
The AAR/IP must be submitted within 90 days of the exercise or progressive exercise series.

If a significant real-world incident prevents a grant-funded exercise from taking place, the agency can submit the AAR from that incident in place of the exercise AAR, with an explanation.⁴

Emergency Management Performance Grant (EMPG) recipients face similar expectations. Their work plans must align with their IPPs, and they report quarterly on training and exercise activities, including a list of completed courses and exercises and the percent completion of their training and exercise plan.⁵ EMPG recipients are encouraged to submit AAR/IPs for tabletops that validate critical plans and for large-scale functional or full-scale exercises at the state, territorial, tribal, or regional level.

HSEEP Training

FEMA offers the L-0146 HSEEP Training Course as the standard entry point for anyone involved in exercise planning, control, facilitation, or evaluation. The course runs 16 hours and covers the full cycle from program management through improvement planning. It’s aimed at planning team leaders, controllers, facilitators, evaluators, exercise program managers, and senior officials responsible for organizational preparedness.⁶ It’s delivered in a classroom setting at local jurisdictions and coordinated through the State Training Officer. Based on available data, the course is generally offered at no tuition cost to participants. Completing L-0146 is the practical foundation for sitting in an IPPW, building an MSEL, serving as a controller, or writing an After-Action Report.

1
FEMA. Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program (HSEEP)
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Federal Emergency Management Agency. Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program Doctrine
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FEMA. Mission Areas and Core Capabilities
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FEMA. Preparedness Grants Manual
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SAM.gov. Emergency Management Performance Grants
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FEMA Training. Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program