2.5 Experience Enhancement Recommendations

You can enhance the experience to make it more engaging, realistic, and memorable. These techniques aren't mandatory—basic exercises work fine without them—but they can significantly improve trainee engagement and learning outcomes.

Storytelling Structure of the Exercise

Trainees will probably interpret anything in the exercise as part of a story—even if you didn't design it that way. If you're presenting separate scenarios or vignettes without connection, communicate this clearly at the start. However, if your exercise allows it, use narrative structure to create a more engaging experience.

Classic narrative arc:

Exposition: Establish the situation, context, and stakes.
Rising action: Complications develop, tension builds.
Peak inject (climax): The most important, dramatic, or challenging moment where everything comes together. Consider using an overlay for this moment to emphasize its significance.
Resolution: Consequences of trainee decisions, outcomes revealed, situation concludes.

Time representation:

You can structure time in your exercise in two ways:

Real-time simulation: The exercise unfolds as if happening now. Trainees experience 2 hours that simulate a real process unfolding in real-time. Works well for process-technical exercises where you want to practice actual response speed and coordination.
Time-marked narrative: Each inject marks when events occur in scenario time. "It's now Monday 9:00 AM." Then later: "It's now Monday 2:00 PM, 5 hours have passed." This requires careful planning, but you control pacing strategically—you can compress boring periods and expand critical moments. This approach works well for strategic exercises covering longer timeframes or multiple phases of response.

Choose the time structure that serves your learning objectives and matches trainee expectations for their roles.

Vignettes as an Alternative Exercise Structure

Thinking through the lens of vignettes can facilitate the exercise design process, especially when creating a cohesive narrative story seems difficult, or when the story feels too contrived or forced.

Instead of one continuous narrative, an exercise can consist of several vignettes—short scenarios based on practice. A vignette is a brief story (approximately 200 words), simplified and partially unrealistic, drawn from real-world experience (More information here, page 20). Due to its lower complexity, it facilitates discussion about sensitive or difficult-to-grasp topics.

In this approach, the exercise becomes a collection of several vignettes arranged sequentially. Each vignette has:

One primary learning objective
Several learning activities
Maximum 20 minutes to complete

This modular structure offers flexibility—you can mix and match vignettes to target specific learning needs, adjust difficulty progressively, or adapt the exercise length to available time. Participants can engage with focused scenarios without the cognitive load of tracking a complex, overarching narrative throughout the entire exercise.

Using Custom Channels for Adding Context

Create custom channels for immersion. Instead of everything appearing in "Exercise Information," create dedicated channels that match your scenario:

"National Cyber Authority" channel for government communications
"Internal News" for company updates
"Social Media Monitor" for public reaction
"Executive Dashboard" for management briefings

The platform doesn't allow styling custom channels, but you can boost immersion by creating visually distinctive injects—add pictures with specific graphical elements like logos, letterheads, social media screenshots, or dashboard designs that make each channel feel authentic.

This helps trainees immediately understand information source and context without needing to explain it in text.

Email Realism

Tonality matters: Different characters should write differently. CEO emails sound different from IT technician emails.

How to do it simply: Create different personas for your scenario characters (e.g., "CEO - formal, strategic thinker" or "IT technician - technical, direct, uses jargon"). Use a generative AI tool to rewrite all emails from each character in their specific voice. Process all emails from one character at once to maintain consistency throughout the exercise.

Common mistake: Designing scenarios where a critical crisis would realistically be handled face-to-face or by phone, but forcing email-only communication. If real teams would meet in person or call each other, don't make them email instead. Match communication channels to what would actually happen.

Formatting and Readability

Visual presentation affects engagement. The best approach? Inspire yourself with well-designed websites that have good copywriting. Look at how they structure information, use white space, emphasize key points, and make content scannable.

Keep it readable—trainees won't read walls of text during an exercise.

Document length: Don't expect trainees to read 20-page documents during a 2-hour exercise. They won't. If you need them to read substantial material, send it before the exercise as pre-reading. Only create documents that serve a specific learning objective. Don't add documents just because you can.

Forms and Questionnaires

Keep prompts clear and concise: Overly long or complex instructions confuse trainees.
Not everything is a test: Many questionnaires should capture opinions (scales, preferences) rather than testing factual correctness.
Avoid quiz format: If the entire exercise feels like a knowledge test, you're not using the platform's potential.

Tools Design

Match tools to roles: Don't give trainees tools they wouldn't have in reality. Communication team shouldn't have "Block IP Address" tool. CEO might have "Issue Press Release" tool, but the communication team should write the press release themselves.
Tools create emphasis: Making something a tool (rather than an email action) gives it special importance. "Activate Crisis Team" as a tool makes that action feel significant. Use this strategically.
Deception opportunity: You can include tools trainees don't actually need, teaching them to evaluate appropriateness. If they activate "Crisis Team" tool inappropriately, send a negative email or hint explaining the mistake.
Contact database tool: A specific useful tool—trainees enter argument/search term, tool returns relevant contacts for the exercise.

Discussion Techniques and Ideas

Enrich exercises by incorporating structured discussion methods. Use confirmation buttons paired with specific discussion frameworks:

Liberating Structures

Methods designed to include everyone in shaping next steps and unlock collective intelligence. The repertoire consists of 33 practical methods that anyone can use without expert training. Popular structures include:

1-2-4-All: Participants reflect individually for 1 minute, discuss in pairs for 2 minutes, then in groups of four for 4 minutes, and finally share highlights with the whole group.
Troika Consulting: One person shares a problem they're facing, and two others provide clarity and possible solutions.
World Café: Large group discussions with dynamic exchange of perspectives.

Your inject explains the method with instructions, trainees discuss using the framework, then click confirmation when done. Learn more at liberatingstructures.com or check the book "The Surprising Power of Liberating Structures" by Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless.

Pre-mortem Analysis

Developed by Gary Klein, this method asks teams to imagine that their proposed plan has failed and then generate plausible reasons for its demise. Instead of asking "What could go wrong?" the pre-mortem uses a crystal ball to affirm that the plan has been a disaster, changing everyone's mindset.

Example

"Close your eyes. It's now 6 months in the future. Your incident response plan has failed catastrophically—the breach caused massive damage to your organization. What went wrong? Take 5 minutes individually to list all possible reasons for this failure, then discuss as a team."

The method helps identify trouble spots in plans, reduces overconfidence, and creates a culture of candor. Read more in Klein's Harvard Business Review article.

Circles of Control/Influence/Concern

The Circles of Control method offers participants a structured way to think about problem-solving and decision-making in complex situations. The method structures problems into three concentric circles:

Circle of Control: What you can directly manage and decide.
Circle of Influence: What you can affect through persuasion, partnership, or soft power.
Circle of Concern: What is relevant but beyond your control or influence—requiring monitoring and contingency planning.

The goal is to align attention and resources with realistic intervention possibilities and reduce decision-making noise under uncertainty.

Simplified version: Sometimes the circles can be reduced to just two categories—what can be influenced and what cannot be influenced.

Example

"You've identified a critical vulnerability in your supply chain. Use the Circles method: In 3 minutes, list everything related to this vulnerability and classify each item: (1) Direct Control, (2) Influence, (3) Concern. Then discuss: Where should you focus your immediate energy? What needs monitoring? What contingency plans do you need?"

Cognitive Biases

If your exercise included important decisions, add a reflection question about cognitive biases that might have influenced choices. Present common biases and ask trainees to identify which ones affected their decision-making:

Confirmation Bias – Seeking information that confirms pre-existing beliefs
Overoptimism – Underestimating likelihood of negative outcomes
Groupthink – Desire for harmony leads to poor decisions
Anchoring – Over-relying on first piece of information received
Sunk Cost Fallacy – Continuing because of resources already invested
Status Quo Bias – Preferring things to stay the same
Planning Fallacy – Underestimating time and resources needed
Illusion of Control – Overestimating ability to control events
Affective Heuristic – Letting emotions guide decisions
Information Cascades – Following others' decisions without independent analysis

Example

"Review the major decisions you made during this exercise. Which cognitive biases might have influenced your choices? Discuss as a team which biases you noticed and how you might guard against them in real situations."

While each of us is very bad at spotting our own biases, we're surprisingly good at spotting biases in others—which is why team discussion is valuable.

Off-Platform Activities

Simply by combining instructions with confirmation buttons, you can add physical activities that make exercises more engaging and realistic. The platform tracks completion while trainees gain hands-on experience.

Examples:

Secure Document Review – Send team representative to dedicated room to review classified documents. They gather information, return, and brief the team.
Record Status Video – Record a 60-second video status update for CEO or stakeholders explaining the situation and recommendations. Upload and submit.
Call External Stakeholder – Call external party (instructor role-playing as authority, regulator, or partner). Report incident and document the conversation.
Present to Leadership Board – Deliver 5-minute presentation of incident response plan to Executive Board (instructors). Answer their questions.
Interview with Media/Investigator – Conduct interview with journalist or investigator (instructor). Prepare messaging and respond to questions under pressure.
Create Physical Timeline/Diagram – Collaboratively create visual timeline or diagram of incident on whiteboard/flip chart. Photo-document and upload.
Physical Evidence Gathering – Send team member to specific location (server room, office) to check status, collect documents, or gather information.

Design Principles:

Clear instructions: Specify exactly what to do, where to go, time limits.
Defined endpoints: Trainees know when activity is complete.
Purpose-driven: Activity serves specific learning objective.
Logistically feasible: You can actually set it up (rooms available, infrastructure ready, people to role-play, etc.)
Integrated with scenario: Feels like natural part of exercise flow.
Don't overuse: Too many off-platform activities disrupt flow.
Don't create bottlenecks: One instructor handling all calls creates waiting time.

Pre-Exercise Phase

Briefing: Ensure trainees understand:

Their role in the exercise
How the platform works
Exercise duration and structure
What's expected of them

Tutorial: Include if this is the first contact with the platform.

Pre-reading materials: If the exercise requires substantial context, send materials beforehand. Use document storage for reference materials, not required reading.

Set expectations: Let trainees know if scoring is involved, whether this is competitive, and how the debrief will work.

Attention Management

Attention contract: Trainees give you temporary control of their attention expecting value in return. Honor this by:

Not wasting time with filler content
Maintaining appropriate pace (not too slow, not overwhelming)
Providing clear instructions
Respecting their cognitive load

Supporting mechanisms:

Time-triggered hints if trainees get stuck
Clear instructions in each inject
Instructor availability (if facilitated)
Varied inject formats – a well-designed scenario can combine questionnaires (both open and closed questions), email communication, document analysis, discussion questions, and text reading. Alternating formats prevents the exercise from becoming monotonous.

Optional Content for Variable Completion Times

Not all participants finish exercises at the same time. To accommodate this variability while keeping everyone engaged, include voluntary injects after the core exercise content that can be skipped if there is no time.

A particularly effective method is What-If analysis as optional content, but you can use anything else.

Implementing Optional Activities

Participants decide whether to complete the What-If analysis. The exercise can be concluded successfully without completing this analysis. This structure allows you to provide both:

Core content: Essential learning activities that all participants complete.
Extended content: Optional enrichment for faster participants or those with extra time.

Benefits:

Faster participants stay engaged rather than waiting.
Slower participants don't feel rushed.
All participants can complete the core learning objectives.
Additional depth is available for those who want it.

Example

After the main exercise concludes, present an optional inject: "You've completed the core scenario. If you have time, explore this What-If analysis…"

End of the Exercise

Action Planning: Help trainees translate learning into concrete next steps. You can use:

Implementation Intentions (5–10 minutes, individual commitment): Ask each trainee to commit to ONE specific action using the "When X, I will Y" format. Research by psychologist Peter Gollwitzer shows this dramatically increases follow-through. Studies show that difficult goals with implementation intentions are completed about three times more often than goals without them.

Example

"You've practiced incident response today. Commit to one action you'll take: 'When [situation], I will [specific action] at [time/place].' Example: 'When I return to work Monday, I will update our contact list in the first 30 minutes.'"
Action Checklist Creation (15–30 minutes, team collaboration): Teams create 5–9 critical steps they'll follow based on exercise insights. This works best for process-technical exercises where teams practiced actual procedures they'll use together.

Closing: Don't just stop. Provide closure with a final inject acknowledging completion.

Debrief/Hot Wash: Structure reflection:

What happened? (factual review)
So what? (what did we learn?)
Now what? (what will we do differently?)

Performance Overview: If scoring is enabled, let trainees see their results and understand the evaluation logic.

Takeaway Document: Consider providing a summary or reference materials trainees can keep—their checklists, key insights, resources for further learning.

Research Ethics and Informed Consent

If you are conducting exercises for human subjects research purposes, we strongly recommend obtaining informed consent from all participants. Depending on your jurisdiction and institutional requirements, you may also need approval from an ethics committee or Institutional Review Board (IRB).

Warning

If a team is providing consent collectively, remember that all team members must agree and should be fully informed about this fact.

Implementing Consent in the Platform

Informed consent can be obtained at the beginning or at the end of your exercise, depending on your research design and ethical approval:

Beginning: Obtain consent before participation (traditional approach).
End: Run the exercise as training, then ask participants if they consent to their data being used for research purposes (retrospective consent).

You can implement consent practically using a questionnaire. Include the full consent text in the question prompt, with "Yes, I consent" and "No, I do not consent" as the response options.