Practice the Fire: Designing Crisis Simulations and Exercises That Actually Prepare Your Team

Most crisis exercises fail quietly. >Erik F.A. Gmelig Meyling has facilitated exercises for boards, ministries, banks, hospitals and factory sites - and sat through the other kind too: the annual tabletop everyone can predict, the report that names no one, the drill that tests nothing but the catering. In Practice the Fire, he lays out the craft that separates an exercise that changes an organization from one that merely occupies a morning. This book will show you how to: - Match exercise format to what a team can actually bear, using the four-rung ladder from walkthrough to full simulation- Write objectives before anyone touches a scenario - and test decisions instead of describing them- Engineer injects with real pacing, branching and consequence, using a working Master Events List template- Facilitate a room that includes the defensive executive instead of losing him- Run virtual and hybrid exercises that hold up when the room is no longer a room- Turn a hot debrief and a cold evaluation into findings that actually change the plan - not a report that gathers dust >The appendix hands you three complete, ready-to-run designs: a 90-minute leadership tabletop, a half-day cyber functional exercise, and a two-hour communication drill - each with objectives, staffing, a full run-sheet and debrief plan already written. If you own the exercise calendar - as a BCM coordinator, crisis trainer, or HR/L&D lead - and you're tired of drills that teach nothing, start here. Scroll up and get your copy today.