Table Top Exercise Program (TT*XP)

Organizational Need:

The best way to evaluate strategies and plans is by testing them. Although actual full disaster recovery testing is the most complete approach, it may be invasive to normal business production.  Furthermore, it may not be possible to test actual recoverability for certain scenarios, such as pandemic response.  A quality alternative to testing is the table top exercise. A table top exercise can be organized with disaster scenarios without trying them out on critical systems and data.  Problems that might arise will be identified before they become serious issues.  Table top exercises and scenarios are developed according to individual business needs and parameters.

Approach:

A table top exercise is generally developed together with scenario development and involves the following activities:

• Development of a presentation to be used to conduct the exercise among the identified critical staff.
• Development of participant handbooks for use during the exercise.

The Solution:

Table top exercises result in a broader knowledge of true recovery capabilities, with that understanding and knowledge shared by all critical staff involved. The table top exercise provides a first level validation of the corporate resiliency strategy and allows continued validation to proceed. Validation through tests and exercises is a key criterion in all accepted standards and guidelines and regulations (i.e. BS 25999, ANSI NFPA 1600, FFIEC, HIPAA, NASD & NYSE) for best practices in Business Continuity Management.