Red Teaming (#15)

Over the past few years corporate risk management teams and business continuity professionals have started to incorporate an exercise called Red Teaming into their preparedness planning. More widely used in the military and in cyber security, the Red Team is tasked with providing opposition viewpoints that challenge operational assumptions and biases. Essentially, it is playing devil’s advocate in order to protect organizations against their blind spots.

Red Teaming involves thinking outside the box and pushing back on those who say “that would never happen.” The Red Team is responsible for making sure crisis management teams are prepared for any shock and will not be surprised by the realization of an outlier scenario, while also knowing how to operate under such scenarios.

A know a lot of people are putting together plans to operate in the new environment. If you and your team are doing planning for the future, use some Red Team questions to make the plan stronger, such as:

1) What is the worst-case scenario if we go in this direction?

2) What indicators tell us this scenario is about to happen?

3) What environmental (outside) incidences could unhinge our plans?

4) How can we build mechanisms into the plan so we can pivot directions should an outlier scenario begin to manifest?

Joan Hodge, a former intelligence analyst and Red Teamer for Control Risks, provided this post.

Are you using red teaming to prepare for the next crisis? If you need some help, reach out to TFCG.