EXERCISE OBJECTIVES AND TRAINING AUDIENCE     Will a state of emergency/crisis be declared? Are the necessary communication matrices/PoCs in place? How does the government address the issue of reassuring the public? Does the government have a strategic communication plan in place for such events? Given a possible international dimension, what will be the official external narrative? Academics and students represent a special target group as well. They may be involved both in the form of active players and as part of the exercise planning team. Both options might bring mutual benefit. Internships or direct participation in exercises helps build awareness within the student body. A cyberaware student body becomes an important resource for future recruitment policies of cyber security institutions. Understanding the complexity of a cyber incident, and understanding how many various elements and levels are necessary to take into account to tackle it, is the first step to ensuring cyber security preparedness in any given state. A whole-of-nation approach is necessary both in handling real situations and when developing exercises. Relatively lower exercise participant numbers (20-30) will make for a better “workshopenvironment”. In other words, this can provide for a more candid atmosphere stimulating further discussions. Moreover, it will be easier to divide a smaller group into the teams of 4 or 5. Further, the fewer the group total, the easier it is to handle and evaluate performance. Conversely, you can train larger audiences (8090) at one time. Such large exercises can also be manageable, but you need to be aware of possible difficulties. If involving dozens of participants, more effort and resources must be allocated to the exercise (money, human resources, facilities, technical requirements, time for preparation etc.). For less-experienced audiences, it is recommended to start with fewer numbers of attendees. Keep the scope of the exercise reasonable. CONSIDERATIONS PARTICIPANTS FOR SENIOR-LEVEL Having defined the audience, consider how to address specific participants. Especially when it comes to the highest levels of management, political leaders, and executives, it might be challenging to bring them all to the table simultaneously. Coordination and invitations must be executed well in advance, and should explain the importance and benefits of the exercise. Logistics and organizational issues can be tailored as well. Reduce the length of the exercise documents to their minimum (onetwo page summary) and invite the senior-level participants for only the one/two hours when the scenario escalates to their respective level of decision making. Once you have the toplevel decision makers on board, let their subordinates brief them and arrange everything needed (just like in real life). 12/29