Exercise management: New thoughts on an old process
Abstract
Many organisations fail to grasp the significance of a well-constructed resilience exercise and do not utilise the process or findings to the best advantage. The changing operating environment, the complexity of businesses, the interaction and interconnectivity of public and private sector organisations, and the introduction of legislation mandating the conduct of exercises has changed the scope and adequacy of exercises, with increased focus on the ‘correct’ way of developing and conducting them. However, while appropriate exercise management courses have been conducted in the public sector, these have not been readily available to the private sector. Organisations unable to access these resources have had to rely on external providers or the expertise of internal staff. As a result, the types and relevance of exercises vary greatly. This paper argues that, rather than simply writing a scenario and conducting the exercise, what is actually required is a logical process to identify the organisation’s objectives and the reasons for conducting the exercise. These aims and objectives provide a clear focus for the exercise and a relevant scenario to support their achievement.
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Author's Biography
Gavin Love is currently the R3 Regional Manager, Americas and Europe Regions for WorleyParsons, an international professional engineering services organisation. He is responsible for crisis and emergency management, business continuity and security advice, and support for theWorleyParsons operations in Canada, the USA, Latin America, the Caribbean and Europe. Gavin has been actively involved in the development of risk management, business continuity management, security risk management and employment screening guidelines and standards for Australian and international associations and bodies. He is currently involved as a member of Standards Australia, the US NFPA 1600 Committee and an Australian representative to the International Standards Organization, TC 223 Societal Security Committee.
Matthew Anderson is Principal Consultant at Global Business Continuity. He is a Churchill Fellow and has studied the protection of critical infrastructure and business continuity in the USA, Canada, England, Ireland, France and Israel. Matthew has designed and facilitated numerous business resilience and counterterrorism-based exercises for both government and industry. He has assisted in the development and review of guidelines and handbooks on security risk management, business continuity and exercise management.
Citation
Love, Gavin and Anderson, Matthew (2008, July 1). Exercise management: New thoughts on an old process. In the Journal of Business Continuity & Emergency Planning, Volume 2, Issue 4. https://doi.org/10.69554/STBJ2073.
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