Exercises and contingency planning
Rehearse incident work in a separate workspace. Review the results and assign follow-up actions.
Plan the exercise
An exercise gives a team a way to rehearse an incident before it happens. An exercise plan defines the practice event. Managers assign participants and scenarios. The plan is marked ready before the exercise starts.
A controller releases each scenario. The exercise keeps its own history and data protection rules.
Capture results and follow-up
Practice is useful when its lessons turn into work someone will follow up. Staff record results for review. Follow-up work can be assigned to named people. Completion stays visible before the exercise closes.
The help includes a synthetic Hurricane Isaias exercise. It is a training example. It does not describe a live agency response.
Keep exercise and operational work apart
An exercise must not be mistaken for an operational assignment. Exercise workspace access must be assigned. Exercise equipment cannot be linked to operational incidents. The environment and database settings maintain the boundary.
A simulation estimates an outcome. An exercise rehearses a workflow. Neither action issues a real deployment order.
Use exercises to test the operating plan
A rehearsal can test how the team responds when the normal workflow is interrupted. An exercise can follow staffing through deployment and return. Staff can test missing replies or equipment problems. The results lead to assigned follow-up work.
Infrastructure recovery needs its own tests. The selected deployment must test backups and provider failures. The exercise workflow records operational practice and its results.