Tabletop exercises are used to test the theoretical ability of a group to respond to a situation, such as natural disasters. They allow people to practice without disrupting the community and can identify pain points that need to be addressed. They can be used by governments, businesses, and families to prepare for emergencies.
A tabletop exercise is an exercise designed to test the theoretical ability of a group to respond to a situation. Emergency services are especially fond of using tabletop exercises to practice things like natural disasters, and these exercises can be used in many other ways as well. One of the great advantages of a tabletop exercise is that it can allow people to test a hypothetical situation without causing disruption to the community, such as when police officers want to practice their response to a bomb threat.
The concept of the tabletop exercise will be familiar to anyone who has played board games and tabletop RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons. A facilitator sets the terms of the scenario, and then the “players” around the table voice their responses to the scenario, and the scenario changes in response to their actions and random factors that can be determined by rolling dice or cards. Participants may be from a single group or agency, or they may be a diverse group of people, with exercise testing cooperation in addition to a willingness to respond.
For example, if a city government wanted to run a tabletop exercise to practice hurricane preparedness, the players would likely include law enforcement agencies and representatives from the public health department, along with heads of city agencies and hospitals. , and perhaps representatives of large regional employers , transport companies, etc. The facilitator would say “a category five hurricane is forecast to hit in 24 hours”, and the participants will proceed to express their responses. As the “situation” developed, the facilitator would provide additional information, such as “the hurricane is 12 hours away, still a category five, and is currently causing damage in a neighboring nation.”
Tabletop exercises can be used to identify pain points that need to be addressed so that, should the scenario come to life, agencies are ready to respond. They are also used to promote cooperative thinking and to allow people to practice so that they are more prepared for emergencies when they do arise. While tabletop exercises aren’t the same as a live action practice scenario or the real thing, they can help people learn to work together, and they can familiarize people with technology they might be using, agencies with whom they might be interacting, and Disaster protocol.
In addition to being used by governments to assess disaster preparedness, tabletop exercises can be used by businesses and even families to let people know what to do in an emergency. For example, a school could hold a tabletop exercise with teachers to prepare them for school closing, or a family could have a tabletop exercise so everyone knows how to respond to an evacuation order.
Several companies do packaged tabletop exercises, and it is sometimes possible to obtain disaster scenarios from government agencies as well. Individuals, agencies and businesses can also design their own.
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