Tabletop Exercises bring together heads of lines of business and leaders of business processes in a low-stress environment to test crisis management, emergency management and business continuity. Realistic scenarios are presented in an engaging, relatively relaxed environment, where teams walk through their plans for responding to an unfolding crisis.

Functional Exercises heighten the intensity. They are delivered at a faster pace than Tabletop Exercises and require live communication among a larger range of constituents, including external parties. For many organizations, a Functional Exercise is often the natural progression from a Tabletop Exercise.

Full-Scale Exercises are the closest thing to a real event, which increases the challenges on exercise participants. Full-Scale Exercises incorporate all operational and communications functions of an organization. These exercises can also include external parties, such as first responders, vendors, government agencies, etc. – parties sure to be involved in many kinds of crises.

Exercises based on war games follow the military’s practice of using competitive, or “red,” teams to simulate actions that competitive parties or organized opposition groups could take to counter or discredit an organization’s crisis strategies and messaging. Competitive war games enable organizations to gain experience managing the sorts of crises that occur in a hostile, competitive arena.

Drills test discrete aspects of an emergency response plan and are less complex than the other forms of exercises. Fire drills are the most common type. Other types include safety- and security-related drills such as for workplace violence and active shooter events. Drills are very useful as first steps in the build-up to larger-scale exercises.