Your first exercise

This walkthrough takes one exercise through the whole cycle: design it, conduct the session, evaluate it and turn what you learned into improvement actions.

Before you start

You need:

• An account in an organization.
• The Exercise Planner role in that organization, granted by its Exercise Program Manager.
• The people who will work on the exercise, already in the organization with the roles they need.

Everything you do applies to what’s selected in the bar at the top of the page: the organization, the exercise and your role. Check it before you make a change.

Design the exercise

Design happens in the Design module, in this order. Each step needs the one before it.

1. Create the exercise

Select Create exercise in the top bar, or New exercise in the exercise list. Give it a name and save. You become its Lead Planner, and you plan and control it. TTX-Zone then opens its needs analysis.

2. Name the team

Open Exercise and select Edit exercise. Add the people who will run and evaluate the session, and tick what each one does: Exercise Planner, Controller, Facilitator, Evaluator or Observer. You can only add people who hold the matching role in the organization.

3. Complete the needs analysis

Open Needs analysis and record why you’re running the exercise: the identified needs, the capabilities to validate and the objectives. You can add objectives from the library instead of writing them yourself.

The summary next to the form lists what’s missing. When nothing blocks it, select Submit for approval, record the approvals, and select Approve form. The MSEL stays closed until the form is approved.

4. Build the MSEL

The Master Scenario Events List is the script of the exercise. Open MSEL and write the scenario, the phases and the injects, the events you’ll deliver to the Players during the session.

Select Submit for review, validate the mandatory injects, and select Mark ready.

5. Prepare the session plan

Open Session plan. TTX-Zone creates one Exercise Evaluation Guide (EEG) for each objective, from the objectives and the MSEL’s expected actions. Assign an Evaluator to each objective and set the session’s date, time, time zone and modality. Then select Mark ready.

Note

Changing a ready document reopens it. If you edit the needs analysis or the MSEL after this step, the session plan tells you what to bring up to date.

6. Invite the Players

Open Players, then Invitations, and create an invitation. Players join the exercise through it and take part from the Playground.

Conduct the session

The session can start only when the MSEL and the session plan are both ready.

1. The Controller opens Control center and selects Start exercise.
2. The Controller selects Release to deliver each inject. Pause and Resume hold the session and continue it.
3. The Players respond and record their decisions, with the Facilitator keeping them on the objectives. Evaluators take notes and rate the session against the EEGs.
4. When play is over, the Controller selects Send ENDEX, then End exercise.

Evaluate it

After the session, each participant finds the Feedback form in their panel.

An Exercise Planner opens After-action report in the Design module and selects Start the report from the session. The report starts from what the session recorded, and its authors write the rest: the Exercise Planners and the Lead Evaluator. When it’s complete, select Mark as final. A later edit reopens it as a new version.

Improve

The report’s Improvement plan holds the actions that come out of the exercise. The Exercise Program Manager follows them across the organization’s exercises in Admin, under Improvement plan. A later exercise can re-test an action, which closes the cycle.