Bold Planning Conducts COOP Tabletop for Denver / Democratic National Convention

This summer, Bold Planning Solutions provided Continuity of Operations (COOP) Tabletop Exercise services to over 30 government agencies located within the Denver area in preparation of the upcoming National Democratic Convention (DNC). The DNC, a highly anticipated four-day political event, is scheduled to take place in Denver, Colorado during the last week of August. In preparation, government officials within the region are taking the necessary proactive measures to ensure their organization’s COOP plans are in place and ready for activation if needed.

To meet the challenge, Bold Planning Solutions was selected to provide Tabletop Exercise services to COOP planners across Denver to test the regions current COOP plans. To do so, representatives of Bold Planning first met with local authorities to develop a plausible and realistic exercise scenario which would stress and test the limits of continuity plans currently in place. Using this exercise scenario, Bold Planning then scheduled and conducted 4-hour presentations where they presented COOP planners with this guided “story line” which contained details about an occurrence of a fictitious event which affected the Denver area and impacted the department’s ability to conduct their normal government operations. The purpose of the exercise was to allow planners to consider the impacts the event on would have on their operations, and in a “role-playing” environment, communicate and coordinate with senior staff and other partner departments about the issues the situation presented to their department and its operations. Issues the departments faced within the exercise included relocation of operations, potential loss of staff, loss of data or operational resources, and several other obstacles which could likely occur in a real-life COOP event. Participants involved with the tabletop exercises included representatives from the Mayor’s Office, Emergency Management, Public Health, Denver Police, Denver Fire, Public Works, 911, and dozens of others local departments.

“Using the lessons learned from the tabletop exercise, planners are now better equipped to go back to their department planning teams and fine tune the strategies within their plan” says project manager Peter Hodes. “Through this exercise process, the departments and their corresponding plans are strengthened and made more responsive to a wider range of potential events which might cause a COOP disruption.”

The Tabletop services are part of a much larger ongoing COOP project being managed by Bold Planning Solutions within the Denver metro region. In 2006, the Denver Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) and North Central Colorado Region (NCR) jointly funded a project to initiate an unprecedented regional COOP planning effort which included the participation of any and all government organizations within a ten county region surrounding Denver. The purpose of the four-year project was to provide a standardized planning foundation for departments to create and maintain COOPs in a common planning environment. The Denver region chose Bold Planning Solutions and their web-based planning system, EMplans.com, as the centerpiece of the project to assist each of the participating organizations in creating their individual COOP plans. The project has been an extraordinary success and the system is currently home to over 800 government organizations at the County, City, and district level to meet their COOP planning needs.

For more information about our Continuity of Operations Planning and Tabletop Exercise services, please contact us today!