Essential Tabletop Testing Exercises for Resilient Businesses

Here are some of the most common and valuable tabletop exercises that organizations frequently conduct:

1. Cybersecurity Incident Response

• Overview: Addresses responses to cyber threats like ransomware, data breaches, and phishing attacks.
• Value: Cyber threats are among the most pressing risks today. This exercise helps teams understand roles in mitigating damage, restoring systems, and communicating with stakeholders.

Free cybersecurity tabletop template

2. Active Shooter Response

• Overview: Focused on assessing response protocols for an active shooter or violent intruder scenario.
• Value: This exercise increases preparedness for a critical, high-impact event, ensuring that employees know emergency procedures, evacuation routes, and lockdown protocols.

Free active shooter tabletop exercise template

3. Severe Weather/Natural Disaster Response

• Overview: Addresses responses to hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, or wildfires, depending on regional risks.
• Value: Severe weather is unpredictable but increasingly frequent, especially for businesses with physical locations. This exercise helps clarify evacuation, relocation, backup power, and remote work policies.

Free winter weather tabletop exercise template

4. Supply Chain Disruption

• Overview: Simulates a sudden supply chain disruption due to issues with a key supplier or logistics delays.
• Value: With supply chain vulnerabilities becoming more common, this exercise helps businesses assess and refine plans for alternative suppliers, inventory management, and contingency contracting.

5. Pandemic or Widespread Illness

• Overview: Assesses the impact of a widespread health event, like a pandemic or flu outbreak.
• Value: This exercise has become essential since COVID-19. It highlights the importance of remote work policies, health protocols, and cross-training to ensure business continuity during a health crisis.

Free pandemic tabletop exercise template

6. IT System Failure/Power Outage

• Overview: Tests protocols for responding to IT system outages or power failures.
• Value: With businesses dependent on digital infrastructure, this exercise ensures that backup systems, data recovery, and communication plans are robust and quickly deployable.

7. Communications and Media Crisis

• Overview: Focuses on managing communications during a public relations crisis or event scrutinized by the media.
• Value: Preparing communication around incidents protects reputation and ensures consistent, clear messaging to stakeholders, customers, and the public.

8. Data Breach Notification and Compliance

• Overview: Simulates a data breach and the response needed for regulatory compliance and stakeholder notification.
• Value: Taking into account strict data privacy laws, this exercise ensures legal obligations are met and incident response plans are compliant with industry standards.

9. Workplace Violence/Insider Threat

• Overview: Addresses scenarios involving workplace violence or threats from employees or contractors.
• Value: This exercise emphasizes prevention, reporting, and response strategies to maintain a safe workplace environment.

10. Financial Disruption or Fraud

• Overview: Focuses on the response to financial disruptions like fraud, embezzlement, or sudden financial losses.
• Value: These tests identify checks and balances, fraud prevention methods, and contingency funding plans that can mitigate financial risks.

11. Leadership Succession Planning

• Overview: Tests the company’s plan if a key executive or leader unexpectedly departs.
• Value: Succession planning ensures the business can continue operating smoothly after a departure and that leadership responsibilities can be redistributed as needed.

Each of these exercises plays a key role in reinforcing resilience, with particular value when customized to reflect unique risks and industry standards. Running these exercises regularly helps teams stay prepared and improves response times during real events.