Successful crisis management and disaster recovery takes more than a plan: it requires realistic testing and validation. How do you do that properly? Are your exercises smoke and mirrors or do they provide as-close-to-real situations as possible? How does your program compare? How can you improve? During this hands-on workshop, you will learn how to set up and conduct a successful Business Continuity Plan exercise. Through a mock exercise of an actual event as the case study, you will participate in response and recovery activities. We will use some surprise participants and provide timely insertions to add realism to the situation – as the event would actually occur.  Join us to learn from some experienced professionals in our industry – as well as your peers – and have fun doing it!

Learning Objectives:

1. Learn how to avoid common pitfalls during the development process and how to anticipate and resolve potential problems
2. Learn how to make drills and exercises realistic and uncover gaps in your plan
3. Learn exercise conduct, evaluation, and critiquing strategies
4. Learn how to structure an exercise in line with the BCP maturity of your organization

Diane Coles Levine Bio:
President of Workplace Management Solutions, Diane Coles Levine specializes in business resilience planning and facility management consulting. She is a guest lecturer in business continuity planning at MIT Professional Education and Vienna University of Technology, Austria. Diane is the co-editor and co-author of the international award-winning books "Work on the Move” and “Work on the Move 2” and co-author of “Cut it Out: Save for Today, Build for Tomorrow.” Diane is a contributing author to Facility Management Journal (FMJ) and won the editors pics award for her article titled “Workplace Violence: Finding and Fixing the Gaps in your program.”  Her work is mentioned in Business Week, Fiscal Times, and Return on Performance Magazine. She won the IFMA George Graves Facility Management Achievement. Award, the CoreNet REmmy for “Workplace Innovation” and was named a Southern California Real Estate Journal “Woman of Influence.” Diane is a member of IFMA Board of Directors and Past Chair of the IFMA Foundation.  Diane is a member of the City of Long Beach CERT.  She holds a Bachelor of Science in Business and Management, a certification in Crisis Management and Business Continuity Planning from MIT, and Masters in Corporate Real Estate (MCR) designation.