Latest News and Articles
When War Breaks Out: What Businesses Should Be Doing to Prepare and Protect Their Operations
War is often perceived as a geopolitical issue affecting governments, militaries, and national security agencies. But in today’s interconnected global economy, armed conflict rarely remains confined to the battlefield. Even when the…
5 Easy Steps for Validating a Business Continuity Plan with Tabletop Exercises
The recent COVID-19 pandemic has shown that many organizations were not prepared to respond to and manage the impacts caused by the virus. Business Continuity Plans (BCPs) were either not developed or were out of date. That’s why it’s essential that your BCP remains up-to-date and is regularly validated…
Crisis Exercise Design – The MSEL
The Master Sequence of Events List (MSEL), is the primary document used to manage an exercise, to know when events are expected to occur, and to know when to insert injects (information) into the exercise. A summary version of a MSEL document can also be used to assist exercise facilitators in…
Training Methods: Breakout Groups
During an exercise or war game there will often occur a key decision point when it becomes necessary or more time efficient to break out some of the participants into a separate smaller group, often called a “breakout group.” This small group can be very effective in obtaining a…
Crisis Simulation Exercise Design & Delivery Process
Prior to designing your Crisis Simulation Tabletop Exercise, ensure you understand the end-to-end process that you intend to use. This can be as easy as a four step process as I describe within this short post. Step 1 – Compose Develop your exercise objectives and general exercise…
Why Crisis Communicators Should Consider Pre-mortems
Guest contributor: Jo Detavernier, SCMP, APR – Principal with Detavernier Strategic Communication Post-mortems are very popular management tools among communicators, including crisis communications professionals, and for good reason: They are crucial to the continuing improvement of processes and tools, as we explained in this article. Many crisis communications manuals will…
Four Reasons You Need to Attend Crisis Management Conferences
Warning: The following reveals a deep and personal secret of the author. Proceed at your own risk. There is a commercial airing right now where a girl says “when I had acne, I made up all kinds of excuses to stay in.” The commercial cuts to her saying things…