BluTinuity | Tabletop Exercises

Tabletop Exercises

If you haven't tested your business continuity, disaster recovery, or incident response plan, you aren't ready to manage a disaster event. Period. Having a plan is great. Training your team on the plans is better. But until your organization engages in a tabletop exercise or drill, you will never truly know if it will work during a crisis. For the same reason that soldiers train, athletes practice, and students do homework, preparation produces better results.

The BluTinuity approach to incident response, business continuity, or disaster recovery drills is to design highly personalized, creative scenarios that intentionally focus on your specific objectives. Regardless of whether you select a tabletop exercise, a role play event, or a hybrid model, we guarantee that your teams will learn from the event. Our team has designed and facilitated over 200 exercises and drills with organizations of all types and sizes.

Our proven and streamlined approach includes the following process:

Identification of Goals: We start by meeting with your team to understand your business, its leadership, various departments and teams, culture, and many other important facets such as regulatory compliance requirements, relevant industry segments, geographic location, and supply chain impact. From this discussion, specific goals will be identified, such as validation of certain procedures, mapping of recovery capabilities, or verification of team communication techniques.

Plan Review and High Level Risk Analysis: We examine your existing incident response, business continuity, disaster recovery, or contingency plans and supporting documentation, using industry best practice frameworks or certification standards as a benchmark. Any areas of vulnerability are identified as potential targets in the drill.

Disaster Scenario Design and Executive Review: We design a unique and personalized disaster scenario deliberately planned to stress key teams, systems, or processes in order to meet the goals of the drill. One or more disasters are chosen that will create a realistic situation that will support the goals of the exercise.

Exercise Facilitation: We facilitate the scenario to involve collaborative role playing within the organization, but may also involve your customers and suppliers, law enforcement, or other third parties that may be useful. If appropriate, the scenario may also include building evacuations and site relocations. In some cases, actors may be used to assist with the simulation.

Lessons Learned / After-Action Review Session: Following the exercise, we meet with the team to share lessons and recommendations for improvement in documentation, procedures, technology, team interaction, and leadership.

Regardless of whether you select a tabletop exercise, a role play event, or a hybrid model, we guarantee that your teams will learn from the event.

Quarles & Brady

"Quarles & Brady LLP, a national law firm with 13 offices in the USA, originally engaged with BluTinuity in 2017-18 to redesign its process and core tool set for the planning and management of security incident response. With our commitment to protecting our client's data and the high cost of data breaches, Quarles recognized that one of the best ways to prepare for a cyber security incident is to organize a cohesive Security Incident Response Team of internal and external resources, develop a solid Security Incident Response Plan (SIRP), and facilitate a series of progressively complex tabletop exercises to test the team's readiness. BluTinuity provided a practical, comprehensive template and worked closely with our team to successfully implement the SIRP across all our locations. We also enjoyed the creativity and thoroughness of the design and facilitation of the tabletop exercises by BluTinuity. BluTinuity owner Scott Owens has become one of our trusted, strategic partners and I would recommend him to any organization seeking to enhance their business continuity and incident response posture."

Jewelers Mutual Insurance Company

"Scott Owens helped Jewelers Mutual Insurance Company (JMIC) with the original development of our Business Continuity Program in 2009, and each year since then, we have asked Scott to assist our Executive Leadership Team with testing our continuity and incident response plans. BluTinuity has designed impactful and inspired tabletop exercise scenarios that align with specific items from the Risk Register that are maintained by the Board of Directors. The scenarios provide practical and relevant training for executives, managers, and individual teams, sometimes even including integration of external resources. Our Executive Leadership Team has greatly enhanced our readiness for a real event by working with BluTinuity."