One of the most undervalued training and evaluation tools is the Tabletop Exercise. A Tabletop Exercise can be delivered in almost any setting and can help teams create trust amongst themselves as well as their critical vendors and other key stakeholders. There are many more benefits to conducting Tabletop Exercises. In this article, I’m going…
Some major corporations have formal crisis management teams with very experienced employees that have been exposed to various corporate crises throughout their careers. However, a significant number of organizations don’t have any crisis management capability at all. Or, if they have a capability in place, they have a less-than-effective program because of poor planning, ineffective…
Does your organization have a workplace violence policy? Are there procedures to follow? Has your organization conducted an active shooter or other violent intruder drills or exercises? Are your staff and other key stakeholders prepared for such an attack? How would your staff respond and how would you manage the event? Answers to the above…
In episode 14 of the PreparedEx podcast we discuss the development of a hurricane exercise and scenario. We walk through the various stages of creating the objectives and scenario as well as discuss how we put the various multi-media visuals together. Our creative manager, Jenny Svenstrup joins in the conversation which includes how she works…
How does your organization prepare for hurricane season? It’s almost hurricane season in the US and many communities, businesses, and property owners are starting to prepare. Knowing your surroundings and talking to the local emergency management agency to find out the hurricane risks can be a good place to start your planning. Are you…
In episode 13 of the PreparedEx podcast, we discuss exercise criteria and provide some examples of exercise criteria and how PreparedEx evaluate using a tool known as Fulcrum. Benchmarking one facility or one area of the business against others essential provides better data and overall understand of where the organization is with respect to readiness….
When creating a cybersecurity tabletop exercise to validate the organizations ability to respond and manage a cybersecurity incident, consider the following three exercise goals. Validate Leadership Decision-Making One of the most important functions of a leader in a crisis is to stabilize the situation as much as possible. A very important aspect of crisis leadership…
In episode 12 of the PreparedEx podcast we discuss exercise objectives. One of the most important, if not the most important step, in the design and preparation of an exercise is to determine exercise objective(s). It is not unusual for individuals planning an exercise to want to begin by focusing on a specific scenario. While…
Do you want to take your crisis simulation exercises to the next level? Feel like your Tabletop Exercises have hit the limit in terms their effectiveness and realism? Then you should consider using a SimCell. What’s a SimCell? A SimCell (Simulation Cell) is a location, usually a room, where role players act out various…