Hiring a Denver Crisis Firm for Plans and Tabletop Exercises

A search for Denver crisis communications planning and tabletop exercise firms should end with a clear statement of work, not a reassuring capabilities list. Choose a provider that will specify the decisions to test, explain how it will observe them and commit to an actionable after-action record.

For CEOs, communications leaders, legal counsel and risk managers, the purchase is bigger than a plan document or a facilitated meeting. The useful connection runs from objective to scenario, participant decision, observed gap, remediation owner and retest. Require the proposal to make that connection explicit.

Define the purchase before building a shortlist

Start with the decision your organization needs to make more reliably. “Improve crisis readiness” is too broad to use as an acceptance test. “Determine who can authorize an initial customer update when the usual approver is unavailable” gives a provider something concrete to scope.

Choose the engagement around the condition of your current plan:

• Plan audit: Ask for a documented assessment of existing roles, escalation rules, approval paths and missing inputs. Require prioritized revisions, not just comments in a document.
• Plan build: Specify the interviews, source materials, decision rights, audience messages and document ownership needed to create the plan.
• Exercise engagement: Require the provider to identify which decisions the session will test and which plan revisions or assumptions must be settled first.

If the starting point is uncertain, use a crisis communications plan audit to frame the discovery questions. Ask bidders to distinguish necessary preparation from optional expansion of scope.

Keep the buying decision separate from exercise instructions. Percepture's crisis tabletop exercise methodology addresses the method; this guide addresses what to require from the firm you hire.

Look for service evidence, then investigate delivery fit

One provider to approach for a scope discussion is Novitas Communications, which describes planning, tabletop exercises and in-person training within its PR Protect offering. Treat the advertised scope as a starting point for inquiry, not a comparative rating or evidence of the team assigned to your engagement.

Ask every candidate for a redacted deliverable or a clearly identified demonstration created for procurement. Useful examples include a scenario rationale, an observer record and an after-action entry showing a decision, its supporting evidence and a proposed corrective action. Do not request confidential client plans.

Have the proposed facilitator explain the sample. Who designed it? Who observed the decisions? What did the engagement include after the session? A polished example is less informative if the person presenting it cannot explain how it would change for your organization.

For Denver-based work, ask directly who will attend, where participants will be and whether travel is included. Distinguish a local office, a locally assigned facilitator and a national team willing to travel. Specify which arrangement you need rather than treating those descriptions as interchangeable.

Require scenario design that tests a business decision

A scenario should create a decision problem relevant to your organization. In the proposal, require the supplier to connect each major scenario development to a decision, an authorized decision-maker and something an observer can record.

An inject is new information introduced during the exercise. Ask what each proposed inject is intended to reveal. A customer complaint, an unavailable executive or a conflicting internal update should have a defined purpose—not simply make the session feel more intense.

Request a design rationale rather than a complete advance script. Participants may need uncertainty during the session, while the buyer still needs enough information to judge whether the design matches the objective.

If a supplier proposes a red-team component, ask what that means in practice. Specify who develops the challenge, what boundaries apply and whether the challenge tests assumptions, messaging or escalation. Do not buy an undefined label.

For an organization headquartered in Denver with employees or customers elsewhere, include the relevant remote decision-makers in scope. Ask how the provider will handle different working hours, inaccessible systems and handoffs between local leadership and corporate leadership. These are design questions, not reasons to assume an onsite session is always superior.

Make participant decisions and handoffs part of the contract

Name an internal sponsor with authority to resolve scope questions. Then separate the provider's responsibilities from your organization's authority to make operational, legal and communications decisions.

The plan writer and exercise facilitator may be the same firm. If so, require the proposal to explain how observations will distinguish unclear plan language, missing organizational inputs and participant choices. If you use separate firms, establish who can revise the plan and who resolves conflicting recommendations.

Use a responsibility map for preparation, facilitation, observation, approval and remediation. Percepture's guide to crisis-response roles and responsibilities can help frame that discussion.

Ask candidates to explain the handoffs they would test:

• Legal and communications: Who checks factual accuracy and legal considerations, and who authorizes release?
• HR and leadership: Who verifies employee information and coordinates internal updates?
• Operations and communications: Who supplies confirmed operational facts, and how are unknowns preserved in messaging?
• Executive and media teams: Who briefs the spokesperson, records approval and handles an unavailable approver?

Have counsel determine legal obligations, notification requirements and information-handling rules. A communications exercise should not substitute for legal advice, emergency procedures, cybersecurity response or technical recovery testing.

Specify the observation record before the session

Ask the supplier to distinguish what participants knew, what they decided and what the observer inferred. An after-action finding should identify the decision or handoff that supports it. Avoid accepting broad judgments such as “leadership alignment needs improvement” without an actionable explanation.

The record below illustrates what a buyer can specify before awarding the work. It contains a hypothetical decision to test, not an exercise result or client case.

Buy remediation ownership, not just an after-action presentation

Require the report to separate observed gaps from recommendations and unresolved questions. A recommendation should identify what must change; an unresolved question should identify who must decide. Neither should disappear inside a general conclusion.

For each accepted action, require an internal owner, an agreed due date, a dependency and evidence of completion. The agency can document and track the work, but your organization should retain accountability for changes to its authority, staffing and operating procedures.

Measure the outputs that match the engagement: whether the approval route was understood, whether known and unknown information stayed distinct, and whether accepted revisions were completed and tested. Do not use press coverage, search rankings or AI citations as substitutes for evidence of decision-making readiness. Keep those objectives separate when selecting crisis communications KPIs.

Specify retesting in the proposal. A focused follow-up may be the right purchase when the issue is a single approval handoff; a broader follow-up may be appropriate when several dependencies change. Use the question of how often to test a crisis plan to establish ownership and review triggers, not merely a recurring calendar event.

Normalize the scope before comparing fees

Ask bidders to identify discovery interviews, plan revisions, scenario development, facilitation, observers, participant preparation, travel, reporting and follow-up as separate scope items. Record revision limits and change-order terms.

Keep exercise-day assistance separate from live-incident support. If you also want an incident-response arrangement, request its own staffing, availability, escalation and commercial terms. Do not infer those commitments from a preparedness proposal.

Choose onsite, remote or hybrid delivery around the decisions being tested. If the objective involves a distributed approval chain, require a design that includes it. If physical handoffs matter, ask how the proposed format will represent them. For hybrid sessions, specify how remote participants will receive information and take part in decisions.

A different provider may be a better fit when the main requirement is technical recovery, operational safety, a legal investigation or specialized regulatory work. Ask the communications firm where its scope ends and what coordination it expects with those specialists.

Send a decision-led brief to the final candidates

Before requesting a final price, give each bidder the same objective, current-plan status, participant roles, delivery constraints and required outputs. Ask for exceptions in writing. Compare proposals against the same purchasing problem rather than against their presentation quality.

When evaluating crisis communications services, distinguish the general relationship from the specific plan-writing and exercise deliverables you want to purchase. Require those deliverables in the statement of work.

The final question is straightforward: after the session, will your team know which decision failed, what evidence supports that finding, who owns the correction and how the change will be tested? Make that answer part of the purchase.

Questions to settle before hiring a provider

Who writes a crisis communications plan for a Denver company?

A communications consultancy or an internal team can draft it. Before hiring, specify the required interviews, source materials, decision-rights work and revisions. Keep internal approval and ongoing plan ownership explicit, even when an outside firm writes the document.

Should the tabletop be led by PR, legal or risk?

Choose the lead around the exercise objective and facilitation requirements, not the department name. Name an internal sponsor, involve relevant legal and risk reviewers, and ask who will observe decisions while the facilitator manages discussion.

What deliverables should the firm provide?

Specify the scope, scenario rationale, decision-rights map, observation record, after-action findings and remediation register. Identify which plan revisions and retests are included. Require the proposal to distinguish final deliverables from working materials.

How should a buyer evaluate a tabletop facilitator?

Ask the proposed facilitator to explain a redacted sample or labeled demonstration. Look for clear decision objectives, purposeful injects, separation of observation from interpretation and a concrete approach to unresolved issues. Confirm who will actually deliver the engagement.

What should change after the exercise?

Accepted findings should lead to specific changes in plans, authority, information handoffs or supporting procedures. Assign an internal owner and due date, define completion evidence and agree how the revised decision path will be retested.

About Bob Generale

Bob Generale is President of Percepture. This guide focuses on crisis communications provider selection, purchasing scope and accountability after an exercise. Visit Bob Generale’s author profile.