Tabletop exercises: Make it fun, make it memorable
Have you ever visited a theme park? Or had a memorable theatre experience? I am pretty sure that most of you can name at least one memorable experience of this in your life. These memories might be different from one person to another, but they all have something in common – having a fun time. They were enjoyable times and therefore most of the details are memorable. This is the feeling that we would like to transmit to our tabletop participants.
The participants need to remember the procedures and the actions to be able to apply them in a real-life situation. Of course, the reality is never going to be exactly what we exercised and a real-life event is not going to be a pleasant situation. However, what we need to focus on in the exercise is making it memorable. Having fun could be one way to ensure this, in my opinion. As such, this article will highlight some tips to prepare a fun and memorable tabletop exercise.
Plan every single detail
As you would with every other project, write a report explaining the exercise preparations, the development of the exercise, and the way to draw lessons. Have this report approved by your management and make it as detailed as possible. When we put together a BCP, we always try not to plan every single detail as it might not be easy to enact. However, when designing an exercise, the more detailed it is the better. This is because you will be able to transmit confidence. By the way, for me, a detailed script is also a key aspect of this.
Train the participants in advance
To boost participation, they need to know what they are going to find. If you tell them, “please come and join us for this exercise” without further explanation, the chances of success will not be high. Whereas, if you set up individual interviews to explain what they might expect, those chances will increase significantly. Also, if you do it in a relaxing way they will empathize with you and with the requirements of the exercise.
Compensate their time
An exercise is an extraordinary activity that might not fit in the top management’s agenda. My recommendation is to schedule it months in advance and make it clear that their time will be well invested. Tell them that any plan needs to be exercised to see its validity but also, at the end, they are going to think it was time well invested. During the exercise, bring cookies and coffee and add their names to the table, thus personalizing the event. If the exercise is conducted virtually, send them postcards or any other idea that might engage them. As we say in Spanish, “what matters is the gesture”.
Choose a realistic scenario, make it fun
Please do not fall into the trap of the zombie apocalypse scenario. It might sound fun, but it is not appropriate for a work-related exercise. It is not realistic (ok, well, not yet) and it might not provide the skills that participants need to deal with a real-life event. Instead, choose a plausible scenario such as “floods in the data centre” and make it fun. Here are some ideas: Introduce the exercise with a news reel video, the injects might have a tight deadline, ask a colleague to play a third-party actor with some extreme requests, etc.
Prepare yourself
While you are facilitating the exercise, some soft skills will be needed such as creativity, time management, communication skills, positive attitude, etc. And let’s face it, not everyone is good at everything, but we can prepare for it. As we do not want to intervene, we need to function as facilitators. Make yourself a checklist (explain the roles, agenda topics, etc) and prepare in advance. Rehearse it like you are playing a scene and you can rehearse with your team or a colleague. If possible, I would also strongly advise participating in training for occasional trainers.
Context matters: a hybrid world
We cannot forget the theme of this year’s BCAW: “Building resilience in a hybrid world.” If your organisation adopted this working model, we need to account for it. Try to adapt your facilities to hold a hybrid exercise, using teleconference facilities and facilitating participation from the office and virtually.
This is definitely not an exhaustive list and I believe that sharing tips with other BC practitioners will enrich our exercises. So, do you have any other tips to consider? In case you would like to discuss the above ones with me, please out to me: info@bereadyforcontinuityMore on
About the author
Macarena Rodriguez Garcia
BCM & ITSCM Consultant, EMEA
I am a Business Continuity & IT Service Continuity (BCM &
ITSCM) consultant at Getronics. Member of the Business Continuity
Institute (MBCI) since September 2016, I also chaired the BCI Spain
Chapter since its creation (2020) till 2023. My previous experience
working for the European Commission helped me to become a specialist
in training and exercising staff to be prepared in the event of a
real-life disaster or major disruption. I believe my background in
communication has proven to be key to provide and implement raising
awareness actions and promotional material to understand better what a
BCMS is and how to be involved to make an organization more resilient.
I am a true believer of the European Union and passionate on the
topic. Besides, I am fluent in Spanish, English, French and
Italian.
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Actualmente trabaja como consultora de
continuidad del negocio y continuidad del servicio IT (BCM e ITSCM)
para Getronics y lo hago desde 2019. Soy Miembro del Business
Continuity Institute (MBCI) desde septiembre de 2016 y además de
presider, ayudé a crear el BCI Spain Chapter. Acabé esta etapa de
voluntariado en 2023. Mi experiencia en el mismo puesto en la Comisión
Europea desde 2014 me ha permitido especializarme en capacitar y
ejercitar al personal para prepararse en caso de desastre o disrupción
continuada. Además, soy especialista en comunicación lo que me ha
ayudado a implementar acciones de sensibilización y material
promocional para ayudar a comprender mejor qué es la continuidad de
negocio y cómo ser partícipes con el objetivo de mejorar la
resiliencia organizacional. También soy una apasionada de la Unión
Europea y su construcción y habla español, inglés, francés e italiano
con fluidez.
