Course Dates
Dates | Number of days | Location | Price | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Tue 22 Nov 2022 |
London, UK | £525.00 | Book now | Reserve a place | |
Course tutor:
Charlie Maclean-Bristol MA (Hons), PgD, FBCI, FEPS
Venue: Make Venues - Broadway House |
Details & Programme
An organisation’s capacity to attend half day exercises is limited and so often exercises only take place once a year. Short exercises are an ideal way to keep up incident management skills, are manageable timewise as everyone can spare an hour, and they can often be as effective as longer exercises. Short exercises, which all take less than an hour to run, can be used in a number of different ways, including to:
- Keep in mind incident management skills in between longer exercises
- Exercise particular scenarios which would not be considered during a longer exercise
- Teach specific incident skills
- Concentrate on a particular part of the incident response, such as the first hour
- Help raise awareness among staff
- Learn and then practise debriefing skills
The course is centered around Charlie Maclean-Bristol’s book, “Business Continuity Exercises: Quick Exercises to Validate Your Plan”. The course will teach delegates the breadth of different exercises within the book, and how to plan, execute and then report on the exercises. The training will cover business continuity, crisis management, crisis communications and cyber incident management scenarios. It will be fully interactive and delegates will practise running different exercises.
The course would be especially beneficial for those with little or no experience in running exercises and will provide them with the tools, processes and confidence to run their own exercises.
Module 1: Understanding Short Exercises
- Initial exercise
- What circumstances are short exercises good for?
- The different types of exercises and debriefs
- What is your exercise trying to achieve?
- Writing exercise objectives
- End to end planning process, including writing post exercise reports
Module 2: Prepare and Practice Simple Exercises
- Delegates split up into groups
- Each group will plan a different exercise
- Each group will brief and then run their exercise
- Techniques for simple debriefing
Module 3: Prepare and Practice More Complex Short Exercises
- Introduction to a number of different complex exercises
- Each group will plan a different exercise
- Each group will brief and then run their exercise
- Discussion on reporting on exercises
Module 4: Running Debriefing and Writing Up Post Exercise Reports
- Different debriefing techniques outlined in the book
- Planning and running different debriefing sessions
- Debriefing practical
- Writing post exercise reports
Day 1
Start | Finish | Subject | Detail |
---|---|---|---|
0900 | 0930 | Introduction | |
0930 | 1100 | Module 1: Understanding Short Exercises | - Initial exercise
- What circumstances are short exercises good for? - The different types of exercises and debriefs - What is your exercise trying to achieve? - Writing exercise objectives - End to end planning process, including writing post exercise reports |
1100 | 1115 | Break | |
1115 | 1300 | Module 2: Prepare and Practice Simple Exercises | - Delegates split up into groups
- Each group will plan a different exercise - Each group will brief and then run their exercise - Techniques for simple debriefing |
1300 | 1400 | Lunch | |
1400 | 1500 | Module 3: Prepare and Practice More Complex Short Exercises | - Introduction to a number of different complex exercises
- Each group will plan a different exercise - Each group will brief and then run their exercise - Discussion on reporting on exercises |
1500 | 1515 | Break | |
1515 | 1645 | Module 4: Running Debriefing and Writing Up Post Exercise Reports | - Different debriefing techniques outlined in the book
- Planning and running different debriefing sessions - Debriefing practical - Writing post exercise reports |
1645 | 1700 | Course Review |
Please note, timings are indicative and exact timings may vary due to delegate experience and their interest in certain topics. The course may finish earlier if all topics have been covered.

Course Benefits
By the end of the Short Exercises course, delegates will be able to:
- Understand when to use short exercises
- Choose the right exercise for the exercise objectives
- Develop objectives and plan an exercise
- Plan and execute a number of different exercises
- Write post exercise reports
Who Should Attend?
- Business continuity and resilience managers
- Incident managers
- Crisis managers
- CIOs, CTOs and CISOs
- IT Managers
- Disaster recovery managers
- Business continuity champions/coordinators
- Anyone in an organisation who has responsibility for running exercises, even it is just for their own department
Tutors

Charlie Maclean-Bristol
MA (Hons), PgD, FBCI, FEPS
In-house Options
Please contact the BC Training team on 01253 542650 or email info@b-c-training.co.uk, should you wish to discuss options for delivering the Short Exercises course in-house at your organisation's premises.
Locations

London
Make Venues - Broadway House
Tothill Street
London SW1H 9NQ
020 7222 7777