Every business, government, public utility and institution must be prepared for unplanned events because, as improbable as many may seem, emergencies can and do happen, often when we least expect them.

Whether it’s a natural disaster, cyber-attack, security breach, accident, or other disruptive event, organizations need to be ready to respond quickly and effectively to minimize the impacts on the health and safety of people, the organization, the community and the environment.

Many organizations develop comprehensive business continuity and disaster recovery plans to manage risk. But as forward-thinking executives know, an untested plan is just a wish, which is why smart businesses incorporate testing exercises into their disaster recovery processes.

Exercises help:

• Evaluate the effectiveness of corporate and emergency plans and procedures
• Assess and enhance the preparedness and capacity of response teams
• Increase problem-solving and decision-making skills of participants
• Improve cross-functional team competencies
• Clarify team roles and responsibilities
• Improve communications and coordination between stakeholders (e.g. internal and external teams, other organizations and entities)
• Expose deficiencies and identify opportunities for program improvements

There are typically two types of exercises:

• Discussion-based exercises (e.g. walkthroughs, workshops, seminars and tabletop)
• Operations or scenario-based exercises (e.g. drills, virtual and physical simulations)

Discussion-based exercises are affordable and informative, but do not provide the level of engagement needed to truly instill enduring knowledge and confidence in learners.

Operations-based exercises provide a more immersive experience that leads to better acquisition of critical assessment and decision-making skills. However, the implementation and execution of them can be a major challenge to many organizations due to their high costs in terms of time, money and resources.

Which is why more and more industries are looking to virtual online simulation solutions like Praxis to provide experiential scenario-based training in a much more cost-effective and efficient manner.

To learn more about Praxis and how it can help you improve the problem-solving and decision-making skills of your critical response personnel, contact us.