What does it look like?
This is an exercise in which participants are given specific roles to perform, either as individuals or groups, which reflect the composition of at least part of a response team.
They are usually presented with a scenario that develops over time and often tend to become more challenging and complex as the exercise progresses. They receive phased injects that represent this evolving series of events, giving them incidents and problems to respond to and decisions to make.
Such exercises are normally held in a meeting room. Injects (simulating events or occurrences that the team responds to) can be presented in a number of ways, including paper hand-out, e-mail, by telephone and simulated media. Group behaviour is observed and the outputs evaluated, with evidence of performance against the exercise objectives captured and reported as usual.
How does it work?
This is designed to give the customer a more developed overview of their incident and crisis management capability. This will be consistent with the time available and the price. It will not be an in-depth analysis. It will answer these questions:
- Have your teams demonstrated that they:
- Understand your incident and crisis management arrangements, and know how to activate, operate and de-activate them
- Know, and are able to apply, the common core principles of incident and crisis management – as expressed in the good practice standards - BS 11200, ISO 22301 and PD 25666
- Can work together to achieve successful outcomes in a simulated incident and crisis scenario
- And does the evidence gathered in this intervention suggest that your plans and arrangements are effective?
We will also provide a short, post-exercise report that will give a professionally-informed answer to these four questions, on the basis of what was observed in the activity. It will also identify areas for development.
What Do We Do: Before the Event
- Preparation by the consultant, involving research into the organisation and its business, examination of plans and arrangements and the design/authorship of the exercise
- Liaison with the customer to ensure that the exercise meets their needs; Distribution of a pre-reading pack on the functional skills of the incident and crisis manager
What Do We Do: During the Event
We will deliver a 4-hour intervention, comprising:
- 0.5 hours on a discursive recap of the core principles identified in the pre-reading
- 3 hours of intensive table-top exercise activity
- 0.5 hours devoted to a 'hot' debrief.
What Do We Do: After the Event
We will produce a post-exercise report, covering key learning points and observations, with recommendations.
What Do You Get?
- Quick, light-touch assurance
- Short and sharp - not disruptive to normal business
- Authoritative 3rd party assessment
- A higher level of assurance than a Discx, but for only a little more investment
- Clear, expert assessment of your strengths and areas for improvement
Contact Us
If your organisation would benefit from an EPC exercise, whatever the scale of requirement, please get in touch with us today.