Elevating emergency response using the Disaster Game
Most local, state and US federal emergency response entities are required to train their staff with an emergency response plan, which most often includes personnel training and written response plans with personnel roles, lines of authority, site security, and medical and emergency alert procedures
The majority of states have an OSHA approved State Plan which extends their authority to private and public sector employees, including first responders.
With global health pandemics, terrorism threats, and natural and man-made disasters making headlines every day, businesses are pressed to have an effective Business Continuity (BC) plan in place. However, studies indicate that only 50 percent of businesses impacted by a disaster survive.
According to a survey report by Forrester Research -- Businesses Take BC Planning More Seriously, Stephanie Balaouras found that 77 percent of small to mid-sized businesses and larger enterprises have BC plans and nearly 80 percent indicated their firms had to provide proof of BC readiness to regulatory auditors enforcing readiness mandates. These types of mandates include HIPAA for healthcare organizations or FFIEC for financial institutions.
It is imperative for all size businesses to ensure their risk assessments are current and updated to reflect change in probabilities and frequencies, as well as personnel changes. Studies show that while 81 percent of U.S. mid-sized companies have a BC plan in place, only 18 percent are confident their plans will work in the event of an actual disaster. No matter how good a plan may look on paper, without thorough and effective testing, it's just paper, and paper that will likely fail or be ignored during an actual crisis. So the perplexing question remains: How can companies effectively develop, test and engage their employees in disaster preparedness?
Disaster Game
Organizations can now elevate their business continuity readiness using the Disaster Game - an innovative game-play method that helps prepare organizations for almost any disaster situation – as a disaster preparedness training aid and testing tool.
Using game play and the element of chance, the Disaster Game creates unique and highly detailed scenarios that can be used for awareness training and/or testing of organizational BC plans. Unlike the single-use, scripted exercises that are traditionally used for this purpose, the Disaster Game engages and challenges exercise participants, providing them with an endless variety of fresh scenarios from which to learn.
The Disaster Game uses a 52-card Events Deck and a 52-card Variables Deck to build unique and engaging disaster scenarios. Dice rolls are used to generate day of week, time of day, and environmental parameters. With it, organizations can create thousands of scenarios that challenge even the most mature business continuity plans.
Disaster Game LLC also offers live, facilitated events powered by the Disaster Game, where Certified Business Continuity Professionals with work with an organization to create and conduct one or more sessions at a client location with the participation of key personnel. They are also developing a web edition -- similar to a flight simulator for disasters – with a role-based, multi-player simulation platform that features:
• Multiple user interfaces including live voice chat via headset and microphone
• A hyper-realistic environment that fully immerses participants in the event; and
• The ability for geographically dispersed Business Continuity teams to participate and interact with each other in real time.
www.disastergame.com
