This article is intended to give the reader of this special Journal of Defense Modeling and Simulation edition an introduction to the UK Ministry of Defence’s Peace Support Operations Model (PSOM). It provides first a general description of the rationale and structure of the model, explaining something of the design philosophy and how this was translated into a viable game/model approach. The origins and need for a simple Irregular Warfare (IW) tool are explained and the expanding stakeholder interest catalogued. Issues of doctrine and terminology provided a constant challenge to the Study, and the PSOM’s efforts to navigate around these, and the friction from residual kinetic modelling legacy, is addressed. The progression from prototype to the current working model is described, along with the PSOM’s current development plans and approach. The intention to enhance the model’s representation of a number of ‘soft’ effects is stressed; some of these are introduced here and expanded in other papers included in this edition. Finally, a description of the extensive international collaboration and configuration control, particularly with the US, leaves the reader understanding that the PSOM provides a potentially unifying IW modelling approach to nations engaged in complex operations.

BACKGROUND:The roles of the emergency services are challenging and often physically demanding. Readiness to meet these challenges and demands is a fundamental requirement for staff to deliver their roles safely and effectively. Furthermore, employers are required by law to demonstrate every reasonable effort to protect their staff from undue risk of work-related injury. Implementing Physical Employment Standards (PES) enables employers to assign staff to roles for which they are physically-suited whilst contributing to such duty-of-care. However, for PES to be successful and legally-defendable, standards must reflect the demands of those job-tasks which are truly critical to the readiness of these services.OBJECTIVE:To determine whether a standardised approach to identifying critical job-tasks exists in the development of PES for the emergency services.METHODS:Studies which conducted analysis of job-tasks to develop PES within the emergency services were reviewed.RESULTS:Forty-two reported studies (i.e. records) met the inclusion criteria. Methods to determine job-tasks varied but were typically criteria-based incorporating one, or all, of 9 reported techniques. Methods were subjective and based upon reference to past or present job-task performance.CONCLUSION:Correctly determining critical job-tasks is essential for effective, legally-defendable PES. A standardised method to define job-tasks remains to be established.