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A selection of materials from DRI International is available here as an added benefit for DRI members. We hope you enjoy this informative collection of industry information and research.

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Does Your Program Have a Leg (or Three!) to Stand On?

Event: Annual Conference - DRI2025

Author: Jeanne Powell

Business Continuity (BC), Information Technology Disaster Recovery (IT/DR), and Cyber Security and Resilience (CS) are individually important sources of strength to any business or organization. It is only when BC, IT/DR, and CS intersect, interconnect, and interlock with each other, like a 3-legged stool, that their combined strength provides the potential of survivability. Sounds logical, right? But, how do we really know if each leg is long enough or strong enough? Maybe one leg is fractured, or too loosely connected to the base, or not aligned with the other legs? How do we really know if the business’ or organization’s 3-legged stool (BC, IT/DR, and CS) actually supports and provides reliable resilience? By involving all three legs of the stool in all exercises, of course! Attend this session to discover ways to engage all three legs when exercising your program and have a little fun doing it.

Tags: Exercises, Scenario Testing

Tabletop Exercise: So They Were Hit, Why Should I Care?

Event: Annual Conference - DRI2025

Author: Dean Gallup

A business is hit with a cyber attack, with cascading impacts throughout the region it serves. Why should you care? This tabletop exercise reviews and discusses the potential impact of a disruption in an increasingly complex supply chain, how it can indirectly affect you professionally or personally, and what you can do to prepare.

Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Cyber Resilience, Exercises, Scenario Testing

When the Future is Now: Innovative Executive Tabletop Exercises

Event: Annual Conference - DRI2025

Author: Emy Dunfee

Getting participation in tabletop exercises can be a struggle, especially when the attendee list is the executive leadership team. By creating comprehensive tabletop exercises focused on emerging (i.e. all over the media) risks, you can improve engagement and organizational readiness. In this session we will deep dive into four innovative tabletop scenarios to help prepare your executive team for modern day risks. Scenarios will include risks such as voice cloning and model poisoning. Attendees will leave this session with an understanding of how to create engaging and innovative tabletop exercises to educate executive leadership teams.

Tags: Exercises, Operational Resilience, Organizational Resilience

Ripped from the Headlines: A Cyber Resilience Tabletop Exercise

Event: Annual Conference - DRI2025

Author: Roberto Zegarra

Join us for a special cyber resilience tabletop event on Sunday, Feb. 2, from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., immediately before the opening of the DRI2025 Expo Hall! With cyberattacks continuing to rise and the possibility of chaotic cyber glitches, we face a challenging cyber-threat landscape. A recent event caused many organizations to come to a screeching halt, proving that this is no longer just an IT problem. What happens when such events obliterate your existing recovery time objectives and affect your entire organization, and perhaps, even your suppliers? This tabletop exercise, based on real events, simulates a cyber glitch due to incompatibility of an operating system with a vendor-approved application upgrade. The issue causes the feared blue screen of death, presenting a stress scenario where collaboration amongst teams is key and decisions need to be made: What needs to be done to respond, take control and recover both systems and operations? The tabletop has several key participating groups, each playing a crucial role during the scenario: Subject matter expert facilitators will create the scenario, manage the pace, injections, discussions, and guide participants addressing questions and concerns. Red teams will ensure discussions and solutions proposed by the participants are in line with existing plans and capabilities. Blue teams will be challenged to react to an event, respond, and recover, rehearsing their roles, discussing procedures, and other issues related to the scenario. Observers will follow the process and procedures during the exercise, aid with collection of notes and provide observations for feedback. Rehearsing how your teams will react remains a proven method to enhance your cyber resilience. This exercise offers a safe environment to develop and practice proven strategies, while noting potential weak points to improve upon. This exercise is included as part of the conference, and there is no additional registration or cost for attending. But capacity is limited, so don’t wait to arrive! We’re excited for you to join us for this exciting event.

Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Cyber Resilience, Exercises, Scenario Testing, Tabletop Exercises

Executing Effective Crisis Exercises

Event: Annual Conference - DRI2025

Author: Penny Neferis, Kimberly Seto

In today’s fast-paced business environment, the ability to respond swiftly and effectively to crises can make the difference between recovery and irreparable damage. Having our teams practice in quiet times is essential in helping them develop skills to navigate through a real crisis. This session is designed to equip you with the knowledge and skills needed to implement comprehensive crisis management tests that enhance your organization’s resilience. We’ll review notification drills, tabletops, disaster recovery, functional and full-scale exercises as well as how a major U.S. airline implements them.

Tags: Crisis Management, Exercises, Scenario Testing, Tabletop Exercises

Full Scale Exercises for Corporations

Event: Annual Conference - DRI2025

Author: Raelene Anderson, Bobby Cook

Learn how to best execute a full-scale exercise for private corporations. Led by two experienced emergency managers, this session will take attendees through every step of the process as well as how to execute the final result. This session will explain how to identify team members, define roles and responsibilities, identify gaps, create improvements, and foster a cohesive and inclusive response to any corporate crisis.

Tags: Exercises, Scenario Testing

Ripped from the Headlines A Cyber Resilience Tabletop Exercise HANDOUT

Event: Annual Conference - DRI2025

Author: Roberto Zegarra

Join us for a special cyber resilience tabletop event on Sunday, Feb. 2, from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., immediately before the opening of the DRI2025 Expo Hall! With cyberattacks continuing to rise and the possibility of chaotic cyber glitches, we face a challenging cyber-threat landscape. A recent event caused many organizations to come to a screeching halt, proving that this is no longer just an IT problem. What happens when such events obliterate your existing recovery time objectives and affect your entire organization, and perhaps, even your suppliers? This tabletop exercise, based on real events, simulates a cyber glitch due to incompatibility of an operating system with a vendor-approved application upgrade. The issue causes the feared blue screen of death, presenting a stress scenario where collaboration amongst teams is key and decisions need to be made: What needs to be done to respond, take control and recover both systems and operations? The tabletop has several key participating groups, each playing a crucial role during the scenario: Subject matter expert facilitators will create the scenario, manage the pace, injections, discussions, and guide participants addressing questions and concerns. Red teams will ensure discussions and solutions proposed by the participants are in line with existing plans and capabilities. Blue teams will be challenged to react to an event, respond, and recover, rehearsing their roles, discussing procedures, and other issues related to the scenario. Observers will follow the process and procedures during the exercise, aid with collection of notes and provide observations for feedback. Rehearsing how your teams will react remains a proven method to enhance your cyber resilience. This exercise offers a safe environment to develop and practice proven strategies, while noting potential weak points to improve upon. This exercise is included as part of the conference, and there is no additional registration or cost for attending. But capacity is limited, so don’t wait to arrive! We’re excited for you to join us for this exciting event.

Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Cyber Resilience, Exercises, Scenario Testing, Tabletop Exercises

Not Your Average Disaster Tabletop: New Perspectives, New Insights

Event: Annual Conference - DRI2024

Author: Dean Gallup

There probably isn’t a resilience professional who hasn’t participated or facilitated tabletops and other exercises. As resilience professionals and functional experts, that’s an important part of your job. This session isn’t your average tabletop; here you’ll be asked to work through a disaster scenario in a new way. How would you respond to a railway disaster from a different perspective, such as a day care center employee, a local fire battalion chief, a railroad supervisor, utilities representative, or others impacted by an event? Participating in this interactive tabletop will give you the opportunity to consider how others react to crisis situations, allowing you to look at resilience from different viewpoints. And maybe you’ll see something you hadn’t seen before!

Tags: Exercises, Tabletop Exercises

WORKSHOP: Designing Compelling Tabletop Exercises

Event: Annual Conference - DRI2023

Author: Andrea Abrams, Dave Chandler, Steven Lei

Whether you are a veteran tabletop writer or brand new to the field, this workshop is a creative space to take your tabletop exercises to the next level. The secret to a riveting and compelling tabletop exercise is not hiring a Hollywood screenwriter – the secret is actually thoughtful research and in-depth planning. Our workshop instructors are seasoned tabletop facilitators who will help you hone the art of blending practical considerations, collaborations with external parties, and focused research to create riveting tabletops that keep people thinking long afterward – and lead to significantly improved confidence and resilience for your stakeholders. The workshop will include time for hands-on planning; the goal is for all attendees to leave inspired, refreshed, and with an actionable list of tabletop ideas for implementation.

Tags: Exercises, Training

Armed Conflict Management (ACM) Best Practices: An Essential Component of Your Resiliency Program

Event: Annual Conference - DRI2023

Author: Nate Bridges, Veronica Krepshaw, Frank Perlmutter, Michele Turner

The world of business is now interdependent more than in any other time in history. In addition to the expansion of multi-national companies, local and regional organizations of all sizes and industry sectors maintain cross-border relationships and global supply chain dependencies (human capital, raw materials, and data) that increase operational risk. Business Resiliency Professionals should have a clear understanding of these direct and indirect interdependencies, monitor these threats, and plan for anticipated impacts to their operations. Armed conflicts by their very nature are volatile, multi-regional, and non-linear; security conditions can deteriorate, and aggression escalate without warning. The unique impacts of each conflict must be evaluated and considered. While some will experience the direct impacts of an armed conflict because it is their country/entity involved, exponentially more will experience the indirect impacts. For example, recent conflicts have caused high fuel prices world-wide even for countries not directly involved or directly dependent on the warring parties. This is a key consideration for why business resiliency professionals should include this type of planning in their resiliency planning approach – their businesses are not insulated just because their country is not at war. The panel will share recommendations for ACM pre-conflict planning, crisis response and ongoing crisis management including: Geopolitical Threat and Risk Analysis Critical Staff Resiliency Strategies Scenario Based Exercises Crisis Management and Response Management and Employee Training and Awareness, and Internal and External Collaboration and Communication

Tags: Active Shooter/Workplace Violence, Best Practices, Communications/Crisis Communications, Crisis Management, Exercises, Global Strategy, Training

Mitigating Vendor Disruptions: Leveraging Procurement Practices and Including Vendors in Exercises

Event: Annual Conference - DRI2023

Author: Vito Mangialardi

This session will present proven practices for managing vendor disruptions. Applying “the best defense is a good offense” approach (the strategic offensive principle of conflict), rings true for planning and mitigating the risk of supply chain disruptions. The presenter will explore general planning practices to manage vendor risk and continuity of operations in the procurement process. Attendees will leave this session with an understanding of a due-diligence approach to engaging and including essential vendors in exercises to identify gaps and surgical actions needed to respond quickly to minimize the impact when a vendor cannot deliver its product and service to your organization which your organization relies upon.

Tags: Best Practices, Exercises, Vendor Assessment

Crisis Response Journal - September 2022

Author: Crisis Management Limited

DRI has partnered with CRJ to provide DRI Certified Professionals access to a PDF version of the most current issue. To access the ‘Flipping Book' version of the current digital issue plus access to the CRJ 15 year back issue library will require a separate subscription. CRJ offers DRI Certified Professionals a digital subscription for only $15 and hard copy subscription for only $100, a significant discount from the list price. To take advantage of this offer, go to https://crisis-response.com/discounted_subscriptions and enter the discount code DRI15 or DRI100.

Tags: Resiliency, Organizational Resilience, Crisis Response Journal, Communications/Crisis Communications, Coronavirus/COVID-19, Crisis Management, Europe, Pandemic, Climate Change, Emergency preparedness, Emergency response, Exercises, Security, Ukraine, Regulations and Standards

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DRI Webinar: Disaster Exercises - Assessing the Effectiveness of Your BCM Plan

Event: DRI Webinar

Author: Lisa Orloff

Community management expert Lisa Orloff provides an overview of effective disaster exercises to assess your business continuity plan. The webinar reviews the key learning objectives of successful models including DRI's Professional Practices for Business Continuity Management, The Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Plan and World Cares Centers Boots on the Ground X. The training is meant to be flexible, scalable, and adaptable so that participants can adapt what is useful to the size and type of organization.

Tags: Business Continuity Program, Exercises

Assessing the Efficacy of Your Business Continuity Plan: Using a Blended Exercise Assessment Model [Handout]

Event: Annual Conference - DRI2020

Author: Lisa Orloff, Dr. Bernard Jones

In this session Ms. Orloff and Dr. Jones will present a blended exercise-assessment model intended for professionals to adapt in gauging the efficacy of their company’s business continuity plans. Traditional methods with be discussed alongside virtual and hands on exercises with the Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program is used as a foundation. Ms. Orloff will present the use of physical disaster simulation exercises while Dr. Jones will present his work using the St John’s University simulation lab and the Advanced Disaster Management Simulator (ADMS™) training suite. Through ADMS, a variety of scenarios can be exercised, including an active shooter, HAZMAT and CBRNe situations, medical emergencies and natural disasters.

Tags: Exercises

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Assessing the Efficacy of Your Business Continuity Plan: Using a Blended Exercise Assessment Model

Event: Annual Conference - DRI2020

Author: Lisa Orloff, Dr. Bernard Jones

In this session Ms. Orloff and Dr. Jones will present a blended exercise-assessment model intended for professionals to adapt in gauging the efficacy of their company’s business continuity plans. Traditional methods with be discussed alongside virtual and hands on exercises with the Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program is used as a foundation. Ms. Orloff will present the use of physical disaster simulation exercises while Dr. Jones will present his work using the St John’s University simulation lab and the Advanced Disaster Management Simulator (ADMS™) training suite. Through ADMS, a variety of scenarios can be exercised, including an active shooter, HAZMAT and CBRNe situations, medical emergencies and natural disasters.

Tags: Exercises

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Leading Large Scale Exercises for Active Shooter and Mass Casualty

Event: Annual Conference - DRI2019

Author: James Mitchell

Attend this session to learn the essential elements necessary to manage an exercise on a large scale. The presentation walks through the process used by Texas Children’s to manage multiple large-scale exercises involving multiple external agencies and hundreds of participants. While the presentation is from a healthcare organization, the lessons are applicable to all. Topics covered include working with external partners (such as law enforcement and EMS0, internal and external communications, and developing after-action reports and corrective actions.

Tags: Healthcare, Active Shooter/Workplace Violence, Exercises

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WORKSHOP: Reality-based Disaster Exercise Techniques

Event: Annual Conference - DRI2018

Author: Jeanne Powell

We test our backups and recovery processes occasionally and pass our audits, isn’t that enough? Only if your BCP goals are just that. Those are certainly important objectives. But, those types of exercises are not enough if the ultimate goal of your BC/DR Program is for your business to survive an actual disaster and the ensuing chaos. Reality-based, scenario driven exercises pull everything together by encouraging a holistic view of impacts and consolidated recovery considerations/efforts not discoverable in more narrowly focused exercises. This workshop will build on previous topics from the same presenter and take things further into the practical realm of disaster exercises. Come and participate in this workshop as we look at and talk about the benefits of robust disaster exercises; quickly review definitions and disaster scenario creation process (previous topics); exercise ingredients, methods, and script techniques; potential outcomes. The presenter brings deep experience with both actual disaster situations and reality-based disaster exercises, which will add a real-life perspective to our discussions.

Tags: Disaster Scenarios, Process, Exercises

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WORKSHOP: Designing Creative Exercises – From Theory to Real World (Active Shooter Exercise)

Event: Annual Conference - DRI2018

Author: Raelene Anderson, Bobby Cook

This three-hour, hands-on workshop is a practical exercise design course during which you will be actively engaged. If you want to learn how to build (or better!) your exercises, this is the workshop for you. Exercising can mean the difference between surviving a crisis and not. We practice to ensure all participants understand their roles and responsibilities during crisis. An exercise is NOT a test, but rather to practice skills learned through training. Supplementary Active Shooter Exercise Example. See presentation listing. Equally as important, is to set your exercise up right from the beginning. Designing an exercise takes time, patience, and support. An exercise should produce measurable, useful, timely and relevant results. Designing exercises is not a one size fits all, however many of the foundations are the same. This course will take you through the steps to design a creative, effective and fun exercise.

Tags: Active Shooter/Workplace Violence, Exercises

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WORKSHOP: Designing Creative Exercises – From Theory to Real World

Event: Annual Conference - DRI2018

Author: Raelene Anderson, Bobby Cook

This three-hour, hands-on workshop is a practical exercise design course during which you will be actively engaged. If you want to learn how to build (or better!) your exercises, this is the workshop for you. Exercising can mean the difference between surviving a crisis and not. We practice to ensure all participants understand their roles and responsibilities during crisis. An exercise is NOT a test, but rather to practice skills learned through training. Equally as important, is to set your exercise up right from the beginning. Designing an exercise takes time, patience, and support. An exercise should produce measurable, useful, timely and relevant results. Designing exercises is not a one size fits all, however many of the foundations are the same. This course will take you through the steps to design a creative, effective and fun exercise.

Tags: Active Shooter/Workplace Violence, Disaster Scenarios, Exercises

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Case Study: Exercise Innovations and Lessons Learned from Silicon Valley’s Applied Materials

Event: Annual Conference - DRI2017

Author: Bobby Cook, Raeline Anderson

Applied Materials, a $9.7 billion technology giant, takes business continuity and emergency response seriously. Applied Materials is the leader in materials engineering solutions used to produce virtually every new chip and advanced display in the world. At the center of the company’s overall program is a robust test and exercise strategy and schedule. Designed to protect 14,000+ employees, 10,200+ patents in 81 sites and 18 countries, it all starts at the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters. It is here that our commitment from top executives makes excellence and innovation possible. Attend this session for an in-depth case study detailing two massive recent exercises — from start to finish. The presenters spent decades in the public sector and have translated their experience, knowledge, and training into a world-class global program for use in any public or private organization.

Tags: Business Continuity Program, Case Study, Exercises

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Event Management: Got the Right Tools?

Event: Annual Conference - DRI2015

Author: Tonya York, Kathryne Estrada, Jayne Johnson, Jared Gouldy

In this session, the McKesson service Continuity Office team shares the processes and tools it uses to manage semiannual exercises and actual events. Learn how McKesson created a SharePoint-based event and exercise-management tool that is flexible, real-time, and allow the team to successfully manage 24-hour contiguous exercises with over 200 participants from two data centers, work-from-home locations all over the U.S., and outsourcers' locations in India and Mexico.

Tags: Exercises

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