Exercises and simulations

TABLETOP EXERCISES

A tabletop exercise is an undeniable means of exercising the roles and responsibilities of those involved in the emergency, crisis management or business continuity plan.

In fact, it introduces an event scenario that may or may not evolve depending on what is to be evaluated. This type of learning validates several aspects of emergency response and promotes the participants’ ability to anticipate.

This is generally one of the first tools used with the members of the coordination team. Prior to the tabletop exercise, the scenario is planned by our training consultant so that it is best adapted to the reality of your organization.

ALERT EXERCISE

The alert exercise aims to validate the planned modalities and the means available to ensure their optimal operation.

In practical terms, this could mean checking the availability of a person who is on call outside of normal hours, checking the emergency phone numbers of external providers or measuring the response time to the internal emergency number.

The exercise can be conducted randomly or on a scheduled basis. It is an excellent way to raise awareness and it is effective.

REAL TIME EXERCICE 

The real-time exercise without personnel deployment is usually the second level of exercise used by organizations wishing to improve their resilience, but without mobilizing all teams at this stage.

This type of exercise introduces real-time communications and exchanges with certain external individuals or organizations. It contains an evolving scenario that can be executed over a few hours or over a day, if desired.

It is an excellent way to validate several dimensions of one’s readiness in addition to testing the robustness of the plans and the congruence of decisions made.

In support of the Exercise Leader, a control table is usually established with a mandate to ensure that the responses provided to participants are as realistic as possible in real time.

EVENT SIMULATION

Event simulation is by definition the operational deployment of a specific plan, an emergency plan, crisis management or business continuity plan.

The simulation is often accompanied by the participation of external emergency responders such as firefighters, police officers or paramedics.

In fact, simulation is the most rewarding learning activity for an organization since it validates the skills and know-how of the various stakeholders at the same time.

For example, Prudent Consulting Group has developed and conducted simulations such as:

• Mass arrival of several wounded in a hospital (Code Orange)
• Bomb threat call
• Hazardous Material Leak in an Industrial Setting and Response by the Emergency Response Team
• Recall of a food product
• General evacuation from an educational institution
• Electrical service failure coupled with a telephone system breakdown
• Fire in an operating room and preparation for an evacuation of the premises
• Service Interruption in a hemodialysis department
• Deployment of a municipal civil security coordination center
• Hostage taking in a youth center
• Spill of a dangerous product in a chemical laboratory
• Contamination of a municipal water supply system
• Etc.