NFPA 1600 - Standard on Continuity, Emergency, and Crisis Management 9.3: Exercises designed to the fourteen purposes from participant safety to individual performance

What does 9.3 require?

Exercise design is required to serve these aims: keeping the people, property, operations and environment involved safe; evaluating the program; finding gaps in planning and procedures; testing or validating plans or procedures that have recently changed; making roles and responsibilities clear; gathering feedback and recommendations from participants; measuring progress against performance objectives; helping teams and entities, inside and outside the organisation, coordinate better; validating training and education; raising awareness and understanding of hazards and what they could do; finding additional resources and assessing those already held, including the personnel and equipment response and recovery depend on; testing whether the team can recognise, assess and manage an incident; practising how teams and resources are deployed; and raising the performance of individuals.