Readiness Exercises

The requirement

If you run a nursing facility, CMS expects two emergency preparedness exercises from you every year. If you run a credit union, your examiner wants to know when your incident response plan was last tested and what you learned. These regulations exist for good reason: to ensure your team is ready for anything. But it's hard to prioritize hypothetical catastrophes when you probably have an everyday crisis (or three) to tend to. It's easy for these valuable exercises to turn into just another hoop to jump through, another box to check.

I can help you check that box, and make it worth checking.

The exercises

I build custom exercises that painlessly fulfill your regulatory requirements, leave your team more resilient, and are actually fun for the people participating.

Really! I coached a drama club and spent years teaching creative writing to middle schoolers, which means I know how to create (and manage) drama, and I know how to hold the attention of a room that did not particularly want to be there. A good tabletop exercise is a good story: it has stakes, it has twists, and your people are the heroes.

In addition to having fun, your team will be more prepared for potential emergencies. No matter how good your incident response plans are, the process of talking through a fictional scenario surfaces gaps. Rather than "tests" with obvious right and wrong answers, the exercises are designed to invite ambiguity, spur discussion, and engage personnel from different departments and backgrounds. By talking through situations they've never faced, your team will be better prepared to work together in an emergency, and you will see simple, concrete ways to improve your processes.

And last but not least, we check the compliance box: the exercise requirement is met, documented, and ready for your surveyor.

How it works

We'll start with a 15 minute phone call to see if we're a good fit. Then one 45 minute intake call, nothing sensitive, just enough for me to learn about your building, your staff, and your plans. From that I design a tabletop exercise that could only belong to your organization, and I come run it: 90 minutes with your team, start to finish.

Within five business days of the exercise, I'll provide you with a complete evidence package:

• Participation record
• Lessons-learned report, keyed to your emergency plan
• Corrective-action list with owners
• Plan-update memo, ready to hand to your next surveyor or examiner

Your team gets a real rehearsal, and your next survey shows the box checked, with the paper to back it up.

Who I am

I'm David Dabney. My day job is compliance consulting for electric utilities, where the audit standards are unforgiving and the real work, like yours, is high stakes. In three years there I've managed a team responsible for cyber and physical security services and regulatory compliance, including our tabletop exercise services: designing and facilitating the same kinds of exercise I'll run for you, for organizations under one of the strictest readiness regimes in the country.

Before that I spent a decade in education, most of it teaching English and social studies to middle schoolers, so I know the toll of working where the need is great and the resources are limited. I also know the difference between training people dread and a session they're still talking about at lunch.

I live in Winooski, Vermont. For organizations in Vermont and northern New England, I facilitate on site, in your building, with your team.

The fee

One flat fee, quoted before we start.

All it takes from you is two short calls and 90 minutes with your team.