EXERCISE PLANNING CYCLE AND DESIGNERS 23/29 Figure 7: Planning cycle. From the outset, determine boundaries and limitations (budget, human resources, time, travel, technology costs, and other resources). Pre-exercise analysis is another important step. What is the overall purpose? What is the intended training audience? What should be exercised, and how? When and where should the exercise take place? The third column of Figure 7 sums up what else must be developed in order to create an interesting and catchy exercise. Start with training objectives, elaborate on scenario, mix it with past incidents, current trends, and strive to include anticipated developments and a few “hot topics” to engage players as much as possible. E.g. while the issue of drones is becoming mainstream, artificial intelligence, robotics and autonomous devices are creating the headlines these days. Split the scenario into smaller logical clusters, main events and specific injects and tasks. Take care to consider the aspect of motivation. Encourage motivation by tailoring an exercise to the training audience needs, capacities, and framework and by setting the storyline into a realistic environment. Be ready to provide hints in case the audience becomes side-tracked. Create a friendly atmosphere and keep repeating that an exercise is not an exam, but an opportunity to expose players to an unusual but possible crisis scenario. A dedicated exercise management portal or tool can be highly useful for the better coordination of tasks. However, for the needs of a limited-time table-top exercise, a common checklist may suffice just as well. Assign roles and tasks, and determine deadlines. Try to keep to a reasonable time frame.