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Dear {{ first_name | reader }},
You probably run a crisis simulation once a year, or commission one because the board or a regulator expects it. It takes weeks to organise. A debrief report follows, and everyone goes back to their day jobs.
Then something real happens, and the first thing your team does is open the plan.
I keep seeing this across the public and private sector: organisations that exercise on a regular schedule still reach for a rigid document when an incident lands. The exercise did its job. One a year just isn't enough practice to change how people behave under pressure.
I believe in large-scale simulations, and I'll say what they are good for. But resilience comes from rhythm: big exercises, tabletops, and small, frequent drills that keep a team used to deciding with incomplete information.
Happy reading.
WAG THE DOG NEWSLETTER | ISSUE WEEK 45, 2026
KEY TAKEAWAYS
One large exercise a year tests the system but rarely changes behaviour. Teams that rehearse once in twelve months tend to return to the written plan under pressure, because nothing in between has taught them to work without it.
Layer your exercises by scale and frequency. A full-scale simulation each year, tabletops several times a year and short drills in between each train a different capability, and none of them replaces the others.
Tabletop exercises keep a programme alive between the big events. They are cheap enough to repeat and structured enough to test decisions, roles and messaging.
A thirty-minute drill that happens beats a perfect exercise that never gets scheduled. Micro simulations and zine-based drills fit into a lunch break or a team meeting, which is the main reason they get run at all.
Repetition builds agility more reliably than a better plan does. Judge your programme by how often your people practise making decisions with incomplete information, not by how thick the document is.