Make assumed external support explicit in an exercise
Crisis exercises · External support · Scenario assumptions · Cooperation
2 min read (estimate)
Assumed assistance is not a confirmed commitment. The exercise brief should preserve that distinction for the subsequent debrief.
An organization rehearses the hypothetical loss of a building for an extended period. In the scenario, a neighboring business quickly provides replacement premises. Nobody has established whether that business could actually do so. This fictional example shows a boundary of the exercise: the management team can work with the assistance provided, while its availability outside the scenario remains unresolved.
For exercise preparation, I propose giving external assistance an explicit status. A scenario assumption applies within the exercise. A confirmed commitment rests on separate coordination with the intended partner and comes with its own conditions. This distinction initially clarifies the terms being used; it does not establish dependable cooperation.
Rico Kerstan and André Röhl’s published working paper “Bewertung von organisationaler Krisen-Resilienz anhand des Resilienzrisikoreifegrades”, NBS Northern Business School, No. 1/2025, treats cooperation and mutual support as an external perspective on organizational crisis resilience. Its resilience risk maturity approach qualitatively assesses risk, resistance and coping capacity against selected scenarios. I derive the proposed status distinction from that framework. It is not an experimentally validated training method presented in the paper.
Before the exercise, exercise control should identify the support it is assuming for the scenario. The organizational role responsible for the partnership adds which arrangements exist outside the exercise and what prerequisites were specified. An unconfirmed commitment need not prevent the exercise, provided the assumption suits the learning objective and remains visible as an assumption.
The debrief should then keep two findings separate. The team may have organized its use of the available premises coherently. At the same time, the premises’ actual availability may remain unconfirmed. That second finding concerns preparation of the partnership; it should not retrospectively become an error attributed to the people taking part.
For the next crisis exercise, select one external support arrangement and document its status. This may generate a separate assignment to clarify conditions with the partner. Only the outcome of that coordination can update the preparedness plan used outside the exercise.