Make assumed external support explicit in an exercise

External assistance can support the management of a building loss if suitable organizations have usable premises and providing them is compatible with both organizations’ requirements. An exercise may assume these conditions without their having been clarified outside the scenario. Suppose that a neighboring business quickly provides premises in the scenario: the management team can then organize their use while their actual availability remains unresolved.

For exercise preparation, I propose giving external assistance an explicit status. A scenario assumption applies within the exercise. A confirmed commitment rests on separate coordination with the intended partner and comes with its own conditions. This distinction initially clarifies the terms being used; it does not establish dependable cooperation.

Our published working paper “Bewertung von organisationaler Krisen-Resilienz anhand des Resilienzrisikoreifegrades” (Rico Kerstan and André Röhl, NBS Northern Business School, No. 1/2025) treats cooperation and mutual support as an external perspective on organizational crisis resilience. Its resilience risk maturity approach qualitatively assesses risk, resistance and coping capacity against selected scenarios. I derive the proposed status distinction from that framework.

Before the exercise, exercise control should identify the support it is assuming for the scenario. The organizational role responsible for the partnership adds which arrangements exist outside the exercise and what prerequisites were specified. An unconfirmed commitment need not prevent the exercise, provided the assumption suits the learning objective and remains visible as an assumption.

The debrief should then keep two findings separate. The team may have organized its use of the available premises coherently. At the same time, the premises’ actual availability may remain unconfirmed. That second finding concerns preparation of the partnership; it should not retrospectively become an error attributed to the people taking part.

For the next crisis exercise, exercise control can document the status of one assumed support arrangement. If no commitment exists, preparation outside the exercise begins by identifying a suitable partner and examining both organizations’ resources and conditions of use. This may result in a separate assignment to clarify the arrangement with that partner. Only the outcome of that coordination can then inform the preparedness plan used outside the exercise.