Which disaster recovery/emergency management plan testing type below is considered the most
cost-effective and efficient way to identify areas of overlap in the plan before conducting more
demanding training exercises?

A.
Evacuation drill

B.
Table-top exercise test

C.
Full-scale exercise

D.
Walk-through drill

Explanation:
In a table-top exercise, members of the emergency management group meet in a conference room
setting to discuss their responsibilities and how they would react to emergency scenarios. Disaster
recovery/emergency management plan testing scenarios have several levels, and can be called
different things. The primary hierarchy of disaster/emergency testing plan types is shown below.
Checklist review. Plan is distributed and reviewed by business units for its thoroughness and
effectiveness. Table-top exercise or structured walk-through test. Members of the emergency
management group meet in a conference room setting to discuss their responsibilities and how they
would react to emergency scenarios by stepping through the plan. Walk-through drill or simulation

test. The emergency management group and response teams actually perform their emergency
response functions by walking through the test, without actually initiating recovery procedures.
More thorough than the table-top exercise. Functional drills. Test specific functions such as medical
response, emergency notifications, warning and communications procedures, and equipment,
although not necessarily all at once. Also includes evacuation drills, where personnel walk the
evacuation route to a designated area where procedures for accounting for the personnel are
tested. Parallel test or full-scale exercise. A real-life emergency situation is simulated as closely as
possible. Involves all of the participants that would be responding to the real emergency, including
community and external organizations. The test may involve ceasing some real production
processing. Source: Emergency Management Guide for Business and Industry, Federal Emergency
Management Agency, August 1998 and Computer Security Basics, by Deborah Russell and G.T.
Gangemi, Sr. (OReilly, 1992).