Case Studies
C-Level Active Shooter Exercise for a Major Utility Company
A major U.S. electric, natural gas, and nuclear energy company, seeking to elevate executive leadership’s crisis response capabilities and engagement, turned to Bryghtpath to exercise both their crisis management framework and build enterprise familiarity with the complexities of an active shooter situation.
The Opportunity
Over the previous few years, the company had implemented an enterprise crisis management framework and a number of operational resources, including the integration of C-Level executives into certain crisis scenarios.
Bryghtpath was retained by the Chief Security Officer to design and facilitate a comprehensive active shooter exercise through their crisis management framework, specifically stressing the response dynamics – communication, collaboration, escalation, and decision-making – between its crisis management team and executive leadership
Approach and Results
We kicked off the 10-week effort by hosting a kickoff session with the core project team and key stakeholders. Given Bryghtpath’s involvement in the development of the company’s current crisis management and business continuity capabilities, our time was primarily spent discerning the right exercise objectives and scenario.
We reviewed the current crisis management procedures and process documentation and conducted interviews with key subject matter experts regarding procedures, real-life response practices and conditions of the scenario that would be beneficial to incorporate.
We then integrated and leveraged a recent tactical active shooter simulation that the company had conducted with law enforcement at a major corporate facility within the organization.
Once planning was complete, we facilitated a ½ day exercise at the organization’s headquarters. The exercise included the enterprise crisis management team, the crisis communications team & support groups, and the entire executive leadership team. Heavy emphasis in the exercise was placed on the transfer of information, collaboration, and escalation of major decisions between the groups.
Following the successful exercise, we wrote a detailed after-action report that included our observations, findings, and specific recommendations for improvement.
The after-action report has since been used by the organization to improve engagement and collaboration with the executive leadership team in their crisis management processes – and drive overall improvements to their physical security, communication, and crisis management plans and processes.
Key Activities
- Review of current crisis management, physical security, and active shooter plans
- Key learnings from previous exercises
- 4 ideation sessions
- Planning sessions with crisis and security teams
Outcomes
- Successful completion of the exercise
- Enhancements to C-Level engagement
- After-action report and recommended actions adopted by client
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