Crisis simulations are among the most practical and effective tools for organizations to develop sound response capabilities and they provide a variety of approaches to test how an organization might realistically respond to a disruption. When building resilient organizations, documented plans and procedures are a good starting point, but without a thorough test, no plan can be considered safe.
Exercises serve this purpose and more, since they reveal how effectively people, decisions and resources come together under pressure. Modern disruptions evolve, escalate and interact with existing vulnerabilities, creating conditions of uncertainty and time pressure that are difficult to anticipate in advance. Therefore, a well-designed exercise can help practitioners uncover the real state of preparedness of their organization.
Exercises apply to a range of scenarios, from operational disruptions to events that require a strategic response. Crises belong to the latter category; therefore, a crisis simulation will test response and recovery measures towards a high impact event that can potentially threaten the entire organization.
Crisis management guidelines and standards build on this point, describing crises as situations that demand fast and effective decisions in conditions of ambiguity and incomplete information. In such conditions, preparedness must leverage rehearsed mechanisms that support the designing and planning of resilience strategies.
Crisis simulations must be practical, since they are designed as controlled recreations of real events, allowing participants to experience crises in a safe environment. Through this process, organizations can analyse how decisions are made, how information is communicated and how resources are deployed. This is especially important in a context where risks are increasingly interconnected. Scenarios are important and they should be relevant to the organization; however, it should be remembered that the goal of an exercise is not to represent every possible threat that may occur but to test internal response dynamics. In other words, the objective is to develop some sort of resilience muscle memory that will come into play regardless of the scenario.
To provide guidance to practitioners, this document contains a practical framework for designing and delivering crisis simulations. It combines established standards and operational methodologies to support the development of exercises that are realistic, structured and focused on capability.
To access this resource please log in to your BCI website profile. If you do not have a website profile, please register here.
