hexMay 18

Table top exercises (basically TTRPGs for government and business) can be used to test plans and refine plans without needing to actually experience a natural disaster, security event, etc. They're used by militaries to practice war. I've been part of such exercises to test incident response runbooks I've written.

I've been reading a friend's thesis about Operational Art and Critical Philosophy in relation to revolutionary praxis. I wonder if anyone has ever run a table top exercise for an action (or for higher level strategy), and, if so, has anything they could share about it?

While organizing with the Seattle GDC, our disaster prep group ran a table to exercise. We chose scenarios from a set of county exercises for local disaster preparedness. Our GM (who worked in public health at the time) had to modify it a lot to fit our use case, but it still gave us a lot of insight.

Unfortunately, it was a number of years ago so I don't really remember the specific scenario or what came out of it.

I did look back at some notes that I found, and we did suggest creating a D&D committee (partially just for conviviality). Reflecting on this in light of reading this thesis, I feel like we we're really on the mark.

Show threadhexMay 18
We also talked about a "Chaos Monkey" exercise, where random people would be chosen to step out for a period of time to see how it impacts the organization. This really helps identify organizational over-reliance on people who could burn out/be arrested/otherwise be neutralized. It forces an organization to be more resilient because disruption becomes a normal thing that people must adapt to. When a real disruption happens, it's already something people have practiced for.
Show threadhexMay 18

Here are some notes I've found also (not ours, but I think we distilled some ideas from these):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tz0mNWt01Fbc78m3waYzviM3exjDY2aj/view

This is related to FEMA stuff.

Edit:
Apologies in advance for the google link. It's not our doc. But also, we did use google drive. I wouldn't do that today.

Show threadhexMay 18

Again, this is focused on community organizations that work directly with emergency management (police, fire, etc). But the ideas still work well (if not the execution) for all sorts of other types of orgs:

https://cdn.kingcounty.gov/-/media/king-county/depts/dph/documents/safety-injury-prevention/emergency-preparedness/cre/cbo-tabletop-exercise-guide.pdf?rev=e9695770e3e2444ab635e2af14254dfc&hash=55894CC9A38E70249D494DF367FD6310

Show threadhex

Here are the scenarios from our 2018 meeting notes:
- Cyber-attack
- Earthquake (FEMA or KC)
- Wind Storm/Power (KC)
- Critical Power Failure
- Pandemic Flu (KC)
- Hurricane
- Chemical Accident

I think we ultimately eliminated "Chemical Accident" as "not something we could do anything about" and "Pandemic Flu" as "too big." Funny that the last one turned out to be something that we had to take care of anyway.

May 18 at 11:22amWeb
Show threadhexMay 18

Such exercises don't need to be grand though. They can be small. They can be for any domain. They can be organized by people with experience to help people who are new.

A simple scenario of "you're at a protest" can branch off into "you hear blast balls and smell tear gas," "you see someone with a gun," "you see someone injured by police," or "a kettle is forming." Games can allow people with experience to transfer information in a highly effective way, a way that lets new people leverage their knowledge immediately but without risk.

Other scenarios might be things like...
- Someone tells you that your organization has been infiltrated by a right wing agitator
- There's conflict between two members of your organization
- An organizer goes missing

What scenarios do you think activists and organizers should think about?

Show threadhexMay 18

Oh, here's one of our docs for anyone in PNW. It's incomplete (also, from 2018):

Running list of disaster risks in the Pacific Northwest:

EARTHQUAKE (Three main faults - Cascadia, Seattle, )

PANDEMIC FLU (Global risk)
Especially high in Seattle compared to many other large US cities due to the high number of international flights and international organizations based in the Seattle.

STORMS

HEAT WAVES
Seattle lacks a familiarity with extreme heat. Less than half of people have air conditioning. Growing wealth inequity, homelessness, and addiction increases the risks posed by high temperatures.

VOLCANIC ERUPTION
Mount. Rainier.

WILDFIRES & WILDFIRE SMOKE
“Harvard University researchers, in collaboration with colleagues at Yale University, have created a watch list of hundreds of counties in the western United States at the highest risk of exposure to dangerous levels of pollution from wildfires in the coming decades. Among them, heavily populated counties such as San Francisco County, Calif., King County, Wash., Alameda County, Calif., and Contra Costa County, Calif., are projected to face the highest level of risk of wildfire smoke exposure in the coming decades.” [source]

Show threadhexMay 18

Oh, here it is (July 2018). It's nice that this report back didn't include any names or initials so I didn't need to sanitize it:

Meeting Notes:

Table-top exercise scenario topic was state and far-right repression.

Responses:

Strong networks require redundancy, so no one person is a social connection, skills, or resource gatekeeper. These people are often targeted by the state, and if they get burned out and leave, it also weakens and jeoprodizes groups.

Ways to strengthen our networks:
Mentoring/sharing responsibility. Creating a culture of mentorship and support so new people learn skills, take on responsibilities, and are introduced to other folks. Reducing burden on a few key people too.
Chaos Monkey exercise: ask central people to step back from communications/organizing to see what happens.
Regular check-ins! & Delegates check-in with new members they sign up
Ask well connected folks to introduce people to build social redundancy.

Gaming (D&D, board games, etc) committee could support a more fun, and socially robust network.

Practical safety tool:
Burner phone. Not everyone needs one, but good to have access to.

TO DO LIST:

Make regular announcements at each meeting for people to check-in with folks they know (especially those they haven’t heard from in awhile!)

Start google doc for disaster preparedness zine
Why you should prepare (ideological argument)
What people should have (the basics)
How to prepare
Frame as questions, so people can find the answer that best suits themselves.
Such as “what are you preparing for?”
Where do you spend most of your time? (home? Office? car?)
Make it as easy as possible for folks to get the basics (list locations for supplies, etc.)

Show threadhexMay 18
We never built the disaster prep zine, unfortunately. We did build a wildfire and smoke prep zine though, which was cool.
Show threadTiota SramMay 18
@Hex I wonder if it would be valuable to run a split scenario where 2/3 of the team thinks you're running "interpersonal conflict" while only 1/3 know that it's really "sexual abuse within the org" and see if things get handled well. Could also do a version with "infiltrator is making false accusations of sexual abuse" but you'd need to be really careful about how to balance things (plus get active consent from SV/DV survivors in group first; ideally let them run things).
Show threadhexMay 18
@tiotasram this right here
Show threadhexMay 18

#Seattle folks who are interested in #DisasterPrep organizing might also be interested in the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods matching funds (closed for 2026, but thinking forward to 2027). We talked about getting grants, but I don't think we ever applied.

https://www.seattle.gov/neighborhoods/community-grants/neighborhood-matching-fund

Grants like this are available all over. #Amsterdam has one too. We don't have to do everything ourselves. It's OK to use money like this to build capacity if we can find good targets. At least, that's my take.

Neighborhood Matching Fund - Neighborhoods | seattle.gov

Matching dollars for neighborhood improvement, organizing, and projects.