Overview

This action assists the resilience planning team in completing and analyzing the list of resilience gaps introduced in the Site-Level Planning module and updated in the Baseline Development and Risk Assessment modules. The TRN uses a risk-informed approach to resilience planning, and a complete list of resilience gaps will inform the process of brainstorming solutions that reduce risks and ensure uninterrupted operations or quick recovery after a disruptive event occurs. Resilience gaps can come in a variety of forms including operational, institutional, and technological. Each of the gaps identified through the TRN process will also be characterized by the resilience attributes impacted to allow for comprehensive consideration of potential solutions to enhance site resilience.

In-Depth

Establishing a complete list of resilience gaps involves: (1) consolidating resilience gaps from all previous modules; (2) characterizing and analyzing the gaps; and (3) refining the gap descriptions.

Step 1: Consolidate Resilience Gaps

Throughout the previous modules, resilience gaps were identified during planning exercises and noted in the Risk Assessment Action 5 worksheet. First, consolidate gaps from all previous modules into the Solution Development Action 1 worksheet.. For a summary of the areas that may reveal resilience gaps covered in the previous TRN modules, review the TRN Resource: Resilience Gaps Checklist.

Next, review the results of the TRN risk analysis. In Action 4 of the Risk Assessment module, the user identified the critical loads and the hazards and threats that contributed most to the site’s risk. If resolved, these gaps are the most likely to yield large risk reduction, and they should already be recorded in the Solution Development Action 1 Worksheet: Analyze Resilience Gaps; however, other gaps with lower contribution to the site’s overall risk may highlight areas for improvement that would address other resilience priorities, documented in the Site-Level Planning module. The resilience planning team may refer back to the Hazard/Critical Load Risk (weighted risk) matrix from the Risk Assessment module and identify any additional resilience gaps that impact site resilience priorities.

Step 2: Characterize Resilience Gaps

After consolidating all resilience gaps, review each gap and fill in the contextual columns about gap type, resilience attribute impacted, and critical load impacted. Review the following questions to determine how to categorize gaps in the Resilience Gap Characterization table of the Solution Development Action 1 worksheet:

• Is this gap operational, institutional, or technological? Identifying the gap type will lay the groundwork for addressing the gap through solutions. Refer to TRN Resource: Categorized Resilience Gaps for information on gap types.
• Which resilience attributes are impacted by this gap? Identifying the resilience attribute will assist with developing a targeted solution later in this module. Refer to TRN Resource: Resilience Attributes for information on resilience attributes.
• Are any critical functions or loads impacted by this gap? If so, which? Refer to critical functions, defined in the Site-Level Planning module, and critical loads, defined in Action 2 of the Baseline Development module.

Once each gap has been characterized, record the total number of gaps that were characterized by each gap type and resilience attribute. This process will highlight areas where there have not been many gaps identified, serving as a prompt to consider if any resilience gaps were missed. If a majority of identified gaps fall into only a few categories, brainstorm whether additional gaps in other categories should be documented. Use the questions in the TRN Resource: Categorized Resilience Gaps to identify any additional gaps.

Step 3: Refine Gap Description

Once gaps have been compiled and characterized, they can be refined to identify overarching issues facing a site’s critical functions and loads. Analyzing and refining gap descriptions will assist a site in understanding the gap’s source (i.e., why these gaps exist). Once the source of the gap has been identified, the resilience planning team will develop a more refined description of the gap. A refined gap description identifies the difference between the current and desired state of a site, as related to critical functions and loads and site resilience priorities, so that the gap is framed as something that can be resolved.

Using the Solution Development Action 1 worksheet, the resilience planning team should refine the gaps by asking five “W” questions. For example, if the team has identified “a lack of training” as a gap, the first question to ask could be: why is there a lack of training? When answering why something is a gap, it is imperative to deconstruct the gap enough to discover the true problem at the gap source. Tracing a gap to its source allows the user to solve the root problem, as opposed to reacting to the effects of the problem. The goal is to understand the source of each gap so that it will be easier to develop targeted solutions later in this module. To do so, the resilience planning team will consider specific questions about each gap:

• What is the gap?
• Why is it a gap?
• Who is impacted by the gap?
• Where is the gap?
• When does the gap need to be resolved (i.e., what is the level of urgency/importance)?

Refined Gap Description: Critical mission Tropical Fruit Research does not meet organizational requirement to be able to sustain critical missions’ energy and water needs for a minimum of 1 week. The redundant system diesel generator that supports the critical load and function required for Tropical Fruit Research does not have enough fuel supply for a week outage because there is inadequate onsite fuel storage. This gap affects fruit researchers and analysts in the Kiwi Building Data Center and should be resolved in the short term (1-6 months).

Step 4: Identify Similarities Between Gaps

The resilience planning team should also analyze the list of gaps to identify similarities between any of the gaps and record those in the Solution Development Action 1 worksheet. Identifying similarities in the gaps (e.g., geographic proximity between gaps, similar gaps impacting multiple critical loads, and so on) will assist with identifying holistic solutions that can address multiple gaps later in this module while developing solutions.