[MTE] [May 2024-P2] Crisis Management Testing and Exercises: A Thought Leader's Perspective [Part 2]

Streamlining CM Testing and Exercising: Designing and Measuring Practical CM Exercises [Part 2]

Crisis management exercises are a cornerstone of organizational preparedness.

However, poorly designed or evaluated exercises can be a missed opportunity. This article explores how to create successful exercises that yield valuable insights for improvement.

Exercise Success

Recipe for Success: Measurement

Objectives Drive Measurement: The success of an exercise hinges on what you measure. Robust objectives guide the selection of appropriate metrics.
Example: A notification exercise might measure completion time, message accuracy throughout communication chains, or hardware and software functionality.
Example: A tabletop exercise might assess role fulfilment, adherence to crisis management processes, communication effectiveness, and team collaboration.

Recipe for Success: Design

Challenge-Focused Design: The exercise design should expose gaps and challenges aligned with your objectives.

Steps for Effective Design

Realistic Scenario: Craft a scenario that reflects your organization's context (political, economic, social, environmental) and company culture.
- Example: A Southeast Asian company wouldn't face citizen compensation demands for a medical checkup, unlike a company in a different region. Design scenarios that resonate with your specific situation.
Logical Narrative: Develop a scenario with a clear storyline and logical progression that reveals process gaps.
Supporting Injects: Sub-scenarios (injects) should reinforce the main scenario and not deviate from its purpose.
Expected Responses: Define the anticipated responses from your crisis management team based on existing procedures and protocols. Deviations from this expectation expose gaps for improvement.
- Example: An injection simulating a damaging social media post should prompt the team to utilize existing social media protocols. If such protocols don't exist, it becomes a learning opportunity.
Visual Appeal: Incorporate visuals like maps, diagrams, or images to enhance engagement and cater to diverse learning styles.

Organizations can transform crisis management exercises from a formality into a powerful tool for building a solid and prepared response team by focusing on clear objectives, robust measurement strategies, and well-designed scenarios.

Stakeholder Engagement and Communication

Transparency in communication is paramount. The plan should identify all stakeholders – internal (staff) and external (media, competitors, public).

Specific communication protocols ensure the correct information reaches the right people at the right time. For example, information marked "internal use only" should not be shared externally.

Beyond the Basics: Building Successful Crisis Management Exercises

Crisis management exercises are vital for organizations to test their preparedness and identify potential weaknesses. However, poorly designed or delivered exercises can be a missed opportunity. This article explores critical elements for creating impactful exercises that enhance your organization's crisis response capabilities.

Engaging the Participants

Visual Storytelling: Go beyond dry text with visuals like fake news reports, social media posts, or maps. These elements bring the scenario to life, enhance understanding for diverse learners, and make the exercise more engaging.
The Power of AI: AI can be a valuable asset in exercise development. It can generate scenario overviews and raw data, freeing up experts to focus on adding context and refining the narrative. However, AI should never replace human expertise in exercise design.

Delivery Matters

Facilitation Expertise: A skilled facilitator ensures the exercise runs smoothly and creates a positive learning environment. This includes managing timeouts for de-escalating conflict, providing encouragement, and incorporating teachable moments.
Debriefing for Improvement: A thorough post-exercise discussion is crucial. This includes reviewing the objectives, identifying successes and shortcomings, and capturing lessons learned. Consider using post-exercise surveys to gather participant feedback on the exercise experience.

Learning from Setbacks

Setbacks as Stepping Stones: Deviations from planned procedures during an exercise are not necessarily failures. They can reveal new strategies or areas where existing procedures need modification. Encourage participants to think creatively and adapt their responses.
Continuous Improvement Cycle: The learnings gained from exercises should be documented and used to refine crisis management plans and processes. Subsequent exercises can validate these changes, creating a continuous improvement cycle.

Avoiding Missed Opportunities

Clear Objectives: Every exercise should have specific, measurable objectives that guide the scenario design and evaluation process.
Compelling Narrative: A well-crafted scenario with a logical flow and realistic details is essential for engaging participants and drawing out potential procedural gaps.
The Right Level of Challenge: Exercises should be challenging enough to test capabilities without overwhelming participants. Finding the right balance is critical to maximizing learning.
Openness to Innovation: While procedures guide responses, be open to observing deviations during the exercise. They might reveal valuable insights for improving existing processes.

Summing Up ...

By incorporating these elements, organizations can move beyond basic crisis management exercises and create impactful simulations that strengthen their readiness for real-world emergencies.

Successful exercises are not about pass/fail evaluations but continuous improvement and building a resilient crisis response team.

Final Words from the Moderator

Dr. Goh Moh Heng moderates and transcribes this session. Click the left icon to view questions and answers posed by participants before the MTE.

Email your comment to the moderator if you have any questions.

Streamlining CM Testing and Exercising [Part 2]

Crisis management exercises are not just about ticking a box. To be truly effective, they require careful design and execution. Clearly defined objectives, a captivating scenario with visuals, and the strategic use of AI for scenario building are all crucial.

The facilitator is vital in keeping the exercise engaging and managing the flow. Debriefing is essential for extracting valuable lessons learned and identifying areas for improvement in procedures.

Finally, these exercises should be viewed as part of a continuous learning cycle. The knowledge gained is used to refine procedures and validate changes through subsequent exercises.

By following these steps, organizations can ensure their crisis management teams are well-prepared to face any challenge.

Lastly, there is formal training in crisis management, exercise and testing. This is Module or Day 4 of the Crisis Management Expert Implementer course or CM-5000.

More Information About Crisis Management Blended/ Hybrid Learning Courses

To learn more about the course and schedule, click the buttons below for the CM-300 Crisis Management Implementer [CM-3] and the CM-5000 Crisis Management Expert Implementer [CM-5].