EXERCISE PLANNING CYCLE AND DESIGNERS CHAPTER 6 EXERCISE PLANNING CYCLE AND DESIGNERS The exercise planning cycle is a continuous process, and therefore a special exercise unit (or at least a designated team of designers who are primarily responsible for planning, running, evaluating, following-up and implementing the exercise results) is required. The most effective and useful cyber table-top exercises are characterized by tailored content and highly specific injects. Preparing such exercises requires a lot of human resources, time, knowledge and experience in project management and coordination skills. A major task-set for creators is to determine the exercise purpose, and to develop the pertinent story with subsequent injects. To be able to do this effectively, exercise designers need to gather inputs from relevant colleagues and partners. To validate that the narrative and injects are oriented in the right direction, consultations with the correct professionals is necessary. For instance (depending on the training objectives) ask a legal advisor on legal implications, ask the STRATCOM team to get insight into strategic communication areas, ask experts on crisis management regarding overall procedures and crisis processes, ask technicians about technical aspects, ask foreign affairs/specific region analysts on geopolitical considerations, etc. The preparation of cyber security exercises is about people. Organizational skills and attention to details are a must for exercise designers. They must be creative, innovative, and open to new ideas. The more novel the exercise is, the more participants can take away from the training. Precision and strict adherence to schedule is another required skill, as is the preparedness to be ready to absorb lots of information. Exercise unit members should have the opportunity to meet regularly, to hold briefings and conferences with applicable colleagues and parties during the entire planning stage. Good communication and argumentation skills are also very valuable. To illustrate all that the preparation and execution of an exercise entails, please refer to the following table and graphic (Figure 7). The table, apart from underscoring the continuous planning process, divides the main activities into administrative, organizational and content portions. 22/29