Corporate full-scale exercises: Why they are required

This paper discusses the importance of exercising private sector crisis management plans and teams. It identifies common roadblocks that prevent corporate emergency managers from creating and executing meaningful exercises and suggests how to address those challenges. It describes a step-by-step process to devise comprehensive exercises, including how to create buy-in from senior leaders and other stakeholders, selection of crisis team members, creative ways to engage teams and exercise plans, and the importance of after-action reports (AAR) and improvement plans. The benefits of creating and administering successful goal-oriented exercises are outlined and supported through real-life experience and examples. The paper provides insight into how to achieve cohesive and response-ready crisis management teams through designing and leading creative and goal-oriented crisis management exercises. This article is also included in The Business & Management Collection which can be accessed at https://hstalks.com/business/.