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Crisis Management Table-Top Exercise. Here’s What We’ll Be Doing…. Objectives Ground Rules Scenario Setup Tabletop Exercise Debriefing and Discussion Wrap-up. Objectives. Test our crisis communications and decision-making skills
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Here’s What We’ll Be Doing… • Objectives • Ground Rules • Scenario Setup • Tabletop Exercise • Debriefing and Discussion • Wrap-up
Objectives • Test our crisis communications and decision-making skills • Discuss how incidents like these could affect you and your organization • Share lessons learned from disasters or disruptions you’ve experienced
Ground Rules • Respect other individuals and their opinions. • This is just an exercise – get into it, but don’t go overboard • The purpose of this activity is to share, to learn, and to experience • Be sure that decisions follow natural laws and are reasonable given the circumstances
Background – Your office Your company: YourCo, Inc • Headquarters – • Washington, DC - 50 employees • Engineering & Development -Ashburn, VA - 800 employees • Testing & Training – • Douglas, AZ - 300 employees Your HQ building: • 8 Floors, your office is on the 3rd floor • 160,000 square feet • 10 tenants plus retail shops
Responsibilities Crisis Management Team: • CEO • Finance & Admin • Human Resources • IT • Sales & Marketing • Facilities • Sales
Moderator’s Roles • First Responders (Fire, Police, EMS) • Other Tenants & Guests • General Employee Population • Media (Local & National) Above all keeping the process on track
Situation Setup On this particular morning, most of the senior management team has just returned from a belated celebratory breakfast for winning Fortune Magazines “100 Best Companies to Work For” award. Everyone worked especially hard this year and all are proud of the organization’s accomplishment. Now that everyone is back at the office, work continues on office renovations. There is a lot of work to be done that has been delayed with construction in the office. The look of ‘it’s going to be a late night’ is on everyone’s face.
9:48am – Business Continuity Manager - You Typically snarled traffic and has made you late to work. As you walk in the door, you’re getting those frantic “Where have you been?!” looks. You then find out that both email and the Internet are down. The call center is getting bombarded with calls from people who cannot access the network. Sounds like just another day at the office.
10:02am The office is rattled and shocked by a loud blast and jolt. Everyone appears to be startled at first, but with no immediate after-effects, people start to stir around the office, wondering what happened. There is a large cloud of black smoke and flames are shooting high up in the air from the front of your building.
10:05am Minutes later, sirens blare as fire trucks and ambulances speed to the site. “What is it?”, “What happened?”, everyone asks each other. A co-worker announces, “They think a gas line exploded.” Thick smoke is making it harder to see out the window. “What should we do?” Everyone is talking at once. No one is sure what to do.
10:07am - Building Damage The lower 5 floors of the building are totally exposed. Confidential and sensitive documents are floating through the air.
10:08am – Building PA “Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the Building Manager. The fire department has told me that a gas line has ruptured and is burning at the front of the building. “We ask you to please evacuate now out the rear of the building to your assigned rallying point. The Crisis Management team meets at an assigned meeting point outside and establishes a cell phone conference line. “Are we all here?” is the initial question.
10:10am – Injuries Your CEO has been taken away by ambulance. He was unconscious when they found him. Who is the Alternate CM Team Leader?
10:16am - Water Damage Due to the explosion, water is pouring from the sprinkler system. The pipes have sprung leaks everywhere. Your offices are sustaining water damage – everything is getting wet.
10:18am - Evacuation A man exiting the building runs up to the CM Team and shouts “Someone collapsed in the stairwell - send help!”
10:25am – EmployeeTo the CMT “It turns out that we have a man visiting that is in a wheelchair and was injured during the explosion. He is on the 3rd floor. Employees there don’t know how to get him out since the elevators aren’t working. “They’re panicking, but won’t leave him. But there’s no one there strong enough to carry him out.”
10:30am - Evacuation The flames have been contained enough to allow employees to exit out the front door as well. The remaining employees are escorted out, soaking wet, by fire personnel and led away from the building.
10:45am - Employee “The Paramedics have taken an employee, Carla Clarke to the hospital, but she yelled out we needed to get her son out of daycare.” “One of our staff has volunteered to go get Carla’s son and bring him to the hospital.”
10:55am - Employee “We’ve got a problem. We’ve been trying to account for everyone here in our rally point, but we’re missing about 7 people. We know that some are out traveling, but we are not sure who they are. “What do we do?”
11:01am - Traffic Traffic is snarled in every direction. Fire trucks, emergency vehicles and gas company trucks have all the streets in the area blocked. The exit to your parking garage is also blocked.
11:07am – Call to the Marriott You call the Marriott Hotel next door to make sure your reserved meeting space will be available later. Your contact says, “We know we have an arrangement with you to serve as an emergency operations center, but because of where we are in relation to the explosion, we had to evacuate ourselves. Sorry about that.”
11:21am – Parking Garage An employee asks “How am I going to get to the designated alternate site? I can’t get my car out of the garage! With traffic a mess it will take forever to get a cab or someone to come pick me up! What can you do for me?”
11:30am – Fire Chief “Listen, due to the unknown structural integrity of the buildings, it is not safe for people to reenter for a while. “I might be able to get approval for one or two people to go in if escorted, but I won’t know that until tomorrow. “For now, NO ONE goes inside. And if there’s a problem structurally, it could be weeks before people are allowed in.”
11:40am - From HR “What are we going to do about payroll? Today is pay day and employees that don’t have direct deposit have been asking me about their checks. I had all the paychecks sitting on my desk!”
11:45am - Employee “We just heard from one of our people at the daycare center. They won’t release Carla’s son to her. It looks like Carla’s mother is out of the country and can’t be reached. She’s the only one authorized to pick-up Carla’s son.
12:31pm - Employee “Someone from the media is here looking for a comment about why we didn’t have a plan to evacuate physically disabled people from our building. Who should talk with the press?
12:33pm – Cell Phone Radio Station “…and during the evacuations resulting from the gas explosion today, Tim Jones the COO with BigCo was injured. He was visiting YourCo. “Mr. Jones was in a wheelchair and it appears that YourCo had no plans for evacuating physically disabled people. “With all the confusion down here, we’ve been unable to locate anyone for comment.”
12:48pm – Update on CEO An employee that you sent to the hospital with your injured CEO, has called in to report that he is unconscious and has no more information.
1:40pm – Portable Radio “…explosion earlier today. As a result of the leaking gas, it appears a 4 block section of the area has been evacuated. This includes several hotels and hundreds of businesses. “Stay tuned for continuing updates.”
2:10pm - Cell Call From an Employee “I’m at home and just heard about what happened on the news. I hope everyone is OK. “I haven’t heard anything, so I’m just wondering if the building will be open tomorrow. “Will I need to show up? Or where do I need to go?”
2:44pm - Cell Call From a BigCO “It’s Steve Robinson with BigCo. Listen, we’re sorry to hear of the explosion. “Our CEO is extremely upset with the injuries sustained to Tim Jones. He thinks that if you don’t have plans that address visitor’s needs in an emergency, then we’ll need to consider another company that is better prepared to handle these type of events. I wish you luck with everything going forward. Sorry.” You think to yourself, “Just great, Bigco is our largest customer.”
3:00pm – Portable Radio . . . “We have received reports from the Fire Department that the natural gas line has been shut-off, and there are no further risks to individuals in the area. “There are no immediate reports of the condition of the buildings, but structural examiners are scheduled to inspect all buildings affected. We have our reporters asking for a news conference.”
Score Card Hand Out
Group Performance Metrics 0 – You completely ignored this issue. No consideration to this issue or problem was given. 1 –You considered, but had significant difficulty in managing or dealing with, this issue. 2 -You had a moderate level of confusion but eventually came to a decision over time. 3 -You had a limited amount of confusion or difficulty reaching a decision, but a clear decision was ultimately reached in an appropriate amount of time. 4 -You had little confusion reaching this decision. The decision was made quickly and effectively with consideration for any resulting impact. 5 -You had no confusion or difficulty in handling this issue. Any decision was made quickly and clearly
Debriefing • What score did you get? • Why did you get the score that you did? • What were your top 3 priorities?
Group Discussion • What challenges did you face when going through this exercise? • What most surprised you about this scenario? • What did you learn from this exercise that can be applied to your organization?
Incident Review • Evacuation (where did you rally to?) • Do you know who is in and who is out of the office? • Water damage • Internal & external communications • Employee Transportation • Disabilities (physical, sight, hearing) • Employee needs (day care) • Pay checks • Alternate sites
