What does it look like?

This is an exercise in which the participants, usually working in teams, are required to reflect on the organisation’s response to one or more hypothetical scenarios. It is a form of 'what if..?' analysis.

It can, if approached with critical thinking and rigour, be a useful way of familiarising teams with their plans and arrangements. More importantly, it can be used to test the assumptions that are built into those arrangements. Critical thinking and constructive challenge are the key notes, to avoid the common fault of teams becoming too ready to accept their own optimistic rationalisations.

To achieve the desired outcome they do need external, and expert, facilitation and reporting. They also need good design and imagination. These exercises are normally designed and delivered by a single expert.

How does it work?

This is a short and sharp product, designed to give the customer a basic 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
  • Understand and have tested all the assumptions underpinning your incident and crisis management arrangements
  • Have tested that understanding in a range of discussions based on a series of outline scenarios
  • 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 likely to be effective?

We will also provide a short, tabulated post-exercise report that will give a professionally-informed answer to these questions – on the basis of what was observed in the activity. It will also identify areas for development – on the same basis.

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 deliver a 3-hour intervention, comprising:

  • 0.5 hours on a discursive recap of the core principles identified in the pre-reading
  • 2 hours of intensive discussion activity around 'what it…' scenarios
  • 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. 

Get in touch

If your organisation would benefit from an EPC exercise, whatever the scale of requirement, please get in touch with us today.