In November 2016 the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) would have arranged the national crisis management exercise SAMÖ 2016, with about 100 participants. The Exercises Section at the MSB has for some time put special focus on improving possibilities for lessons learned and the development after an exercise. In this context the Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI) was asked to carry out a process evaluation with such a focus. The MSB, the County Administrative Board of Västra Götaland, and a large amount of actors involved were well on their way in their preparations when the exercise was canceled by decision 2015-12-01. This was due to the refugee situation that emerged during the fall of 2015. The action to cancel the exercise had consequences for our work which instead was directed towards lessons learned from the planning process in general. This report concludes the experiences and views that we in the context of our task have collected both before and after the decision to cancel the exercise. The documentation consists of reflections from a number of exercise evaluations, interviews with the project team and questionnaires to exercise participants and supporting functions ("processtödjare" and "expertnätverk"). A number of challenges and success factors have emerged. Based on these, we have identified factors that contribute to an efficient process, some examples are: ? - To ensure the anchoring of the participating organizations, approaches may need to be carried out at a political level. ? - Activities that ensure creative dialogues between actors are needed to get to know each other's perspectives and problems and to develop a joint process. ?- A prerequisite for participation should be the common basis for management and collaboration ("gemensamma grunder för ledning och samverkan").