From Lessons to Leverage: Turning Crisis Findings into Lasting Resilience 

It’s Monday morning.

The crisis team has just wrapped up a grueling 3-hour cyber incident tabletop exercise. Coffee cups are empty, whiteboards filled with findings line the room, and you can almost feel the collective relief in the air. The “crisis” is over—at least the simulated one. Everyone nods, agrees it was “useful,” and then drifts back to business as usual. Two weeks later, the findings are buried in a PDF report. The gaps identified. Untouched. The lessons? Never applied. Sound familiar? 

This is one of the most common—and costly—mistakes resilience leaders make: failing to follow through on what a crisis or exercise reveals. 

Why Remediation Planning Matters Right Now 

We’re living in a world where disruptions are more frequent, severe, and costly. According to According to PwC’s Global Crisis & Resilience Survey 2023, 96% of organizations experienced at least one disruption in the past two years, and 70% are confident in their ability to respond to various disruptions. 

The problem isn’t just about identifying risks about what you do next. Without structured follow-up, the investment you’ve made in simulations or real crisis recovery evaporates. Worse, you create a dangerous false sense of security. 

Related: 8 Stages of a Resilience Program Maturity Assessment

Common Questions Leaders Ask 

When I sit down with crisis managers and executives after an exercise or event, the same questions come up repeatedly: 

1. How do we prioritize which gaps to fix first? 
   Not everything identified is equally urgent. Without prioritization, teams get paralyzed. 

2. How do we make sure findings lead to change? 
   Reports often get filed away without clear ownership or deadlines. 

3. What if resources are limited? 
   Budget and bandwidth are real constraints, especially for mid-sized organizations. 

4. How do we keep leadership engaged once the adrenaline fades? 
   Senior leaders may “check the box” after an exercise, leaving follow-up to gather dust. Don’t be that leader!  

5. How do we measure improvement? 
   Proving that lessons-to-be-learned turn into better resilience is tough without benchmarks. 

Let’s tackle each of these concerns in a practical, peer-to-peer way. 

Section 1: Prioritize Like a Triage Nurse 

Not every gap deserves the same level of attention. Think of remediation planning like triage in an emergency room: 

• Immediate Life-Threatening Issues (High Priority): Examples include not knowing how to reach critical vendors during an outage or discovering your crisis communications plan is outdated. 
• Important but Manageable (Medium Priority): These are issues that could cause headaches but won’t sink you tomorrow, such as testing the crisis team activation process. 
• Nice to Have (Low Priority): These are improvements that add polish, like stocking the war room with supplies (still important but not essential).  

A best practice is to use a simple Benefit v Effort matrix to categorize findings. That way, the most dangerous gaps rise to the top. Walk through this process with the team after an exercise or real event.  

Section 2: Assign Owners, Not Just Action Items 

Here’s the reality: if everyone is responsible, no one is. Too often, exercise findings are written in vague terms—“improve cross-departmental communication”—with no one accountable”. 

A stronger approach is to assign each finding to a named owner, along with a realistic deadline and measurable outcome. For example: 

• “By March 31, IT Security will update and test the external communications protocol for ransomware incidents, in coordination with the Vendor Incident Response Communication Protocol.”  

This transforms findings from abstract “to-dos” into trackable deliverables. 

Section 3: Work Within Your Real Constraints 

You don’t need unlimited resources to improve. Here’s a simple strategy when time and budget are tight: 

• Bundle fixes into existing projects. If IT is already patching systems, integrate resilience gaps into that workstream. 
• Focus on high-impact, low-cost wins. Updating contact lists or clarifying roles in the playbook cost little but pay off big. 
• Phase improvements. Address the “must-fix” issues in 30–60 days, then tackle medium priorities over 3 to 6 months.  

Remember, resilience is a marathon, not a sprint. 

Section 4: Keep Leadership Engaged Beyond the Exercise 

Executives are busy, and once the simulated crisis is over, their attention shifts quickly. The trick is to keep them connected with regular updates framed in business impact terms. 

Instead of saying: “We updated the team activation process,” say: “We reduced our average team activation time from 30 minutes to 10, which means we’ll protect revenue and reputation faster during a real incident.” 

Leaders stay engaged when they see progress tied to business outcomes, not just technical fixes. 

Section 5: Measure, Celebrate, and Repeat 

How do you know you’re improving? Build a simple before-and-after snapshot for each finding. For instance: 

• Before: During the tabletop, we couldn’t locate the vendor escalation contact for our cloud provider. 
• After: We now have verified 24/7 contacts and tested them quarterly. 

Celebrate these wins. Share them internally. Improvement stories build momentum and reinforce a culture of resilience. 

What Happens If You Ignore the Lessons? 

We don’t have to look far to see the consequences of neglecting exercise findings. 

The Ignore Case: 
In the financial sector, there have been well-documented ransomware incidents where after-action reports have already highlighted weaknesses in crisis communications. Because those lessons weren’t acted on, the real-world response was chaotic leaders froze, messaging lagged, and the media narrative quickly spun out of control. The result? Customer trust eroded, and regulatory scrutiny followed. 

The Best Practice Case: 
On the other hand, some healthcare organizations had run pandemic readiness exercises before COVID-19. Those that assigned owners to gaps—like supply chain resilience and telehealth capabilities—entered 2020 with a head start. They weren’t flawless, but because they had tested alternate suppliers and piloted virtual care, they were able to recover faster, reduce disruption, and even strengthen their reputation in their communities. 

The difference? Not the exercise itself, but what organizations did—or didn’t do—afterward. 

A Common Mistake to Avoid 

Don’t try to fix everything at once. Spreading resources too thin leads to half-finished projects and frustrated teams. Focus on the 20% of actions that reduce 80% of the risk. 

Quick Takeaway Checklist 

Here are five steps you can start applying immediately after your next crisis or tabletop: 

• Sort findings by priority. Use a Benefit v Effort matrix. 
• Assign named owners. Tie each action to a person, not a department. 
• Set deadlines. Make them realistic and track progress. 
• Report in business terms. Frame improvements around time saved, costs avoided, or trust gained. 
• Validate improvements. Retest during the next exercise to confirm the changes work.  

Closing Thoughts 

Tabletop exercises and crises are opportunities—if you use them. Without structured remediation, they’re just expensive simulations. With a clear process, they become catalysts for lasting resilience. 

If you’d like to explore practical ways to strengthen your follow-up process, PreparedEx has resources and proven methods to help. Whether you’re looking to improve your playbooks, design smarter remediation plans, or validate your improvements through exercises, let’s connect. 

Your next crisis isn’t a question of if—it’s when. The question is, will you be stronger the next time it hits?