CONDITIONS

You are a new member on a mission, and are assigned to assist in the collection and display of mission data/information.

OBJECTIVE

1. Know what information needs to be collected, why, and where it comes from.
2. Understand what information needs to be displayed and how.

TRAINING AND EVALUATION

Training Outline

1. What information needs to be collected and why? The following are examples of information you may be ask to collect as a Mission Staff Assistant.
1. Resource status data: The primary source of this information comes from the sign in process as outlined in task S-0422. Other information you may be ask to gather for the staff to use may include what teams or aircrews are ready for assignment or are already assigned. If a team or aircrew goes to lunch, when are they expected back? This information is used by the Plans and Operations Sections to develop assignments for the next few hours. If you are assigned this job, you are working in the Plans Section, Resources Unit.
2. Operations data: The operations data you may be ask to collect might include what aircrews or ground teams are on assignment, when they were dispatched or took off, when they are expected to return or reach their destination, and miles driven or hours flown. All of this kind of information or data is found in the Operations Section. The Operations Section uses this information to track resource utilization, and to know when each group is to return. This information is also used to spot overdue teams or crews. The Information Officer uses the information for media releases to let the public and other interested parties know how the mission is progressing or CAP's part in support of another agencies operations. The Finance Section uses the information for tracking costs and for reimbursement purposes.
3. Financial data: As noted above, the basic information comes from the Operations Section. There are two situations where the information becomes important other than just providing justification records for the reimbursement of aircraft time and fuel and the fuel expenditures for vehicles.
1. On an Air Force approved/funded training mission, a specified amount is provided for that mission number. On a training mission, the flight times for getting the aircrews to the mission must be obtained to determine the maintenance costs and cost of fuel added to determine the inbound cost. The fuel costs expended by Ground Teams and Staff coming the mission must be determined as well. These two costs are then doubled to provide the estimate of funds expended to get to and from the training mission. Once these are subtracted from the total amount of funds assigned to the mission, you have the amount that can be used for the training activities. As the training progresses you may be asked to provide the current estimate of funds expended so that Operations and Planning know when activities must be suspended to prevent going over the assigned limit.
2. On a disaster relief mission, Requests For Assistance (RFA) will normally arrive with a specified maximum funding amount on it. This amount must not be exceeded. CAP may receive several RFAs with different task numbers/fund cites on them. In this case, costs must be separated out to match the RFA number. You may be ask to provide projected costs for future operations and this information will have to be developed with the assistance of the Plans Section.
4. Incident status information: Incident status information is concerned with the collection of what has been accomplished and what needs to be accomplished. What grids or areas have been searched and to what effectiveness. This information is gleaned from debriefing reports from the Operations Section and is gathered and collated in the Plans Section.
2. What information needs to be displayed and how? There are two methods for displaying information, manual and automated. Some information is displayed openly so that it is readily available for anyone to see, while other information is for use by the Mission Base Staff and wider dissemination is at their discretion. As a MSA, you may be asked to help display the information. It is important that the displays be accurate and as current as possible. Some information is displayed on status boards even when automated systems are in use.
1. Resource Data: Resource data is normally maintained only on paper or in the automated system. However in some cases the numbers of aircrews or ground teams assigned or available may be noted on a board.
2. Operations data: Operations data is displayed on hard copy forms that must be kept for the reasons mentioned in paragraph 1. The information may also be displayed on wall charts where visibility of critical data can be monitored by operations personnel. It is of the utmost importance that this data is current and correct at all times.
3. Financial data: Financial data is normally kept in hard copy or some Wings use electronic spreadsheets. If kept electronically, be sure to print a hard copy for mission records.
4. Incident status information: Incident status information is normally more sensitive in nature and not usually on display where to the general public. Situation information such as clues and areas covered are usually plotted on status maps. Release of status information will only be made through the Information Officer or the Incident Commander. Accuracy of status information is important.

Additional Information

More detailed information on this topic is available in the Incident Command System Curriculum.

Evaluation Preparation

Setup:

Use information from an actual mission package.

Brief Student:

Tell the student that they are to collect different types of information and post it to the correct form or wall display if available. Some evaluator assistance may be given.

Evaluation

Student must receive a pass on all performance measures to qualify in this task. If the individual fails any measure, show what was done wrong and how to do it correctly.