“Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.” —John F. Kennedy JFK, the president who inspired a nation to reach the moon, knew a thing or two about leadership. His quote above succinctly drives the point: it’s continuous learning that makes leaders stronger, better able to guide their organizations to achieve particular goals. When…
All organizations should consider the advantages of implementing a comprehensive exercise program rather than focusing on singular periodic simulation exercises. Whether they are a start-up company, an older well-established company, an organization undergoing a leadership change, or a company that is has just completed a merger, and are in the process of developing a…
When is the last time your organization ran a crisis simulation exercise? While the reasons are many, some that serve as a foundation for a strategic-based approach to tabletop exercise programs include: Provides an Opportunity to Review and Analyze Risk In every business environment where there’s risk, continual assessment of known risks as well…
Crisis simulation scenarios provide at least two important services – First, it provides a plausible starting point or setting for the exercise participants to examine particular challenges as well as responses to a crisis (e.g., hurricane, flooding, earthquake, explosion, cyber attack, workplace violence, contaminated products, etc.). One of he chief challenges in scenario development…
When is the last time your organization conducted a cyber security tabletop exercise? Cyber security teams are busy monitoring and responding to attacks against your organization’s information technology infrastructure. Should you still be conducting tabletop exercises? The answer is yes, of course you should. Although some teams seem to be in response mode on…
Ten years ago, Secretary Mike Leavitt of the Department of Health and Human Services said, “Some will say that the discussions of the Avian Flu was an overreaction. Some may say, ‘Did we cry wolf?’ The reality is that if the H5N1 virus does not trigger pandemic flu, there will be another virus that will.”…
In any discussion on continuity of operations, it is reasonable to ask, “Why should my organization invest in a tabletop exercise program?” While the reasons are many, some that serve as a foundation for a strategic-based approach to tabletop exercise programs include: Increased operational resilience: Operational resilience requires comprehensive knowledge of the organization;…
This is a common list of things we do throughout the tabletop exercise engagement. During this process we will: Assist in the refinement of exercise objectives in coordination with your organizations exercise coordinator Tailor the scenario to address stated exercise objectives Develop an overview of the scenario story line (a start, middle and…
At PreparedEx, our client’s feedback is priceless. Our clients routinely evaluate the exercises at the end of each session. We use a standard evaluation form which we then summarize and track for trends to ensure that changes to our process, tools, etc. are improving exercise results. We use a scale of 1-5 as follows: 5=Excellent…
How to create and sell an awkward crisis exercise scenario It’s often the case that the most severe crises that cause lasting harm to a company’s brand and valuation are internally generated. These crises are the result of wrong-doing, sometimes even outright criminal behavior, by members of the C-suite, all the way up to…