A multi-year crisis management exercise program of tailored tabletop exercises gave a Commonwealth agency a tested crisis response framework and a clear path for improvement.
THE CHALLENGE
A Commonwealth agency relies on a wide network of external service providers to support its operations. The agency had a Crisis Management Plan, but an untested plan gives limited assurance. It wanted a programmatic way to validate the plan against realistic threats, embed the lessons from each round and see its capability mature over time. Of particular concern were complex crises that begin outside the organisation with a third-party provider, where the agency has less control over events and has to coordinate a response across organisational boundaries.
OUR APPROACH
Agilient was engaged over several years to design and facilitate a series of tabletop crisis management exercises, each building on the one before. Every exercise started with project planning and a review of the agency’s current resilience documentation, including changes made in response to earlier exercises. Agilient then worked with agency stakeholders to develop a new scenario tailored to the agency’s operating context, with a strong emphasis on third-party and supply chain disruption. Scenarios became progressively more demanding, so the crisis management team was tested on coordination, escalation and decision-making rather than on familiar ground. For each exercise Agilient prepared the full exercise package, facilitated the session, ran a structured debrief with participants and produced a lessons-learned report with actionable recommendations. The agency could then put improvements in place and have them tested in the next exercise.
THE OUTCOME
The program gave the agency a tested crisis response framework and a clear record of how its capability has developed.
- Tailored tabletop scenarios and complete exercise packages for each exercise in the series, focused on third-party and supply chain crises
- Facilitation of every session and structured post-exercise debriefs with the agency’s crisis management team
- Lessons-learned reports with actionable recommendations, forming an iterative roadmap for improving crisis response
Related services: crisis management consultants, exercising and testing, business resilience programs. Sector experience: government security consultant. To discuss a similar project, contact Agilient.