Business Continuity For Dummies

Running an Exercise

In this section, we take a brief look at some aspects of the exercise itself.

Deciding who organises and runs the exercise

If you’re the manager, it’s probably down to you to run the exercise. You can, of course, delegate to a senior manager or your BC manager, depending upon the size of your organisation. But whatever you do, don’t stand ‘cocooned’ safely in a corner outside the exercise: get involved so staff see you’re involved.

Whatever exercise role you play, make sure that you have a record-keeper or note-taker: someone outside the exercise who records/logs the really important points of progress, what goes well and not so well and all the learning points that players identify. An essential part of the note-taker’s role is to assist you at the end of exercise ‘wash up’ (as we describe in the later section ‘Identifying Lessons: Ending Up Stronger’).

Watching for potential pitfalls

You can head off some of the potential pitfalls at the pass by preparing your exercise players. Tell them that:

They aren’t being invited to judge the scenario (this point is crucial).

The exercise isn’t designed to catch them out.

They aren’t to prejudge what the exercise involves. ...