It’s All About People: Crisis Simulations with Purpose - A conversation with Clémentine Gaspar

Introduction to Crisis

0:00In real crisis, there is no single narrative. In the simulation design, you should have, you know, these different events that are developing in parallel.

0:24Hello, everybody. This is Belen Santaolalla from Conductor Crisis Exercise Platform. You're listening to the Crisis Designer Podcast, where we share tips, thoughts, and concepts to help you create impactful crisis management exercises. So, if you're involved in crisis management, reputational risk, business continuity training, information warfare, or immersive simulations in general, this show is for you.

Guest Introduction

0:55Today, I'm joined by Clementine Gaspar, Senior Project Officer in Crisis Management at the Geneva Center for Security Policy, GCSP. Based in Lusanne, Clementine brings over eight years of experience designing and delivering crisis training across sectors, from high-level government workshops to real-world simulations in high-risk environments. Her work blends strategy, facilitation, and immersive technology, helping turn complex global risks into engaging learning experiences.

1:30She's also a certified desk trainer and an officer in the Swiss Army, where she helped modernize exercise delivery using digital platforms. Clementine, welcome to the Crisis Designer Podcast. How are you today? Thank you so much, Belen. Really good, and you? Really good. Excited to have you here and to get started with the first question,

Crisis Management Work

1:54which would be, how exactly do you help your clients? So, that's a very good question. First, thank you so much for the introduction. So, usually in our crisis management team, we help really clients to anticipate and prepare for crisis management situation, whether it will be government, international organization, or private entities. So, actually, we try to equip individuals from diverse sectors with the knowledge and the skills needed to navigate crisis effectively.

2:27So, what we try to do in our courses is like to combine theory with practice. We help participants to gain a deeper understanding of the tools and the techniques the most appropriate in a given situation. So, more precisely, we help through scenario-based exercises, simulation, and crisis management training to support them in building resilience and making better decisions under pressure. Awesome. Okay. So, why would you say that your work is important?

2:58Because, actually, I think we are living in a context where the world has different cascading and interconnected risk from cyber attack to misinformation, from climate disasters or geopolitical shocks, you know, I think that now organizations need not just to have contingency plans, but also the ability to adapt in real time. So, we really try to help them building that agility and awareness

3:29before and when the real crisis hits. So, that's one of our work that is important regarding the world evolving right now. And things are more uncertain and you have to react very quickly. And as the issues get more and more complicated, good crisis management, now it's not an option, but it's a must. And we need to get better at predicting, adjusting, but also taking actions to build up our resilience,

3:59keeping things secure, and ensure stability for the long run. Ooh, that sounds exciting. And how did you end up in this line of work? So, actually, I came to the crisis management a little bit by chance in the sense that since my childhood and thanks to the many travels that I made, I have always had the desire to help others and to contribute to a better world in a small way. And I have very strong interests in human rights. So, I decided to study political science and international relations.

4:33And I started my professional career with internship to gain a better understanding and skills in this humanitarian field. And in my internships, I had the opportunity to meet people from all walks of life and different countries who were fighting for their rights. And really, it reinforced me my decision to continue in this field. And then I was able to go on my first mission trip. And there, I learned a lot. And it made me decide that I really wanted to do that in my life.

5:06And it was obvious for me. And I couldn't see myself doing something else. And then the field of crisis management really came to me by chance. And then after working in crisis management for the last five years, I decided to specialize myself in the simulation design and delivery, actually using the platform conductor. And so, I was adding that to my responsibilities as also a course coordinator and also as a project manager. And as you have mentioned before, alongside my work at GCSP,

5:39I have also been appointed at the Swiss Army as a specialist. And I am at the brigade level. And here, I'm trying to help them to integrate a conductor simulation platform to their technical exercise. Awesome. So, I have these two hats. Ah, I love it. But both hats have a clear purpose. And I feel that you're fulfilling that life purpose that you encountered very early. Exactly. Fantastic. So, you're a senior project officer at GCSP.

Geneva Center for Security Policy

6:13What is the Center for Security Policy and how does it work? So, actually, the Geneva Center for Security Policy, it's an international foundation established in 1995 by the Swiss government to promote peace, security and international cooperation. And we are based in Geneva and we are offering executive education, policy research and dialogue platforms to equip, I would say, mid-term professionals with the skills and knowledge needed to address the complex global security challenges.

6:49So, we support from other 50 member states and a global allotment network. The GCSP really fosters inclusive leadership, strategic foresight and multilateral cooperation to build, I would say, a more stable and resilient international order. So, in general, it's a little bit our mission and what we are doing. Wow. Sounds really important and really valuable. And when you're in that mission to create those connections

7:20and trying to seek that interrelation between entities, how do you create exercises for crisis management? Yes. So, we have different pillars at GCSP and I'm into the executive education pillar. And usually, we are designing crisis management training and simulation for different clients. So, at the start, we always need to understand what are the clients' needs.

7:54What systems, what teams, what decisions do they want to test? This is very essential to do some background research about the culture of an organization and get to understand internally their protocols and procedures. Because if you don't understand the logic behind an organization, it's difficult then to propose them some impactful simulation. And then from there, we try to build a narrative with realistic and plausible stressors. And then this scenario unfolds through what we call the inject.

8:28And I'm sure, Belen, you are familiar with the name inject. And then this new development force participants to adapt in real time. And then from there, you have all this customization of inject where you have to create assets as videos, pictures, documents, reports to polish your simulation and make it as relevant as possible for the participants. So, it's a very detailed work. And I can understand that all the research part is really important.

9:02So, when the players go through the simulation, it feels realistic to them. Do you have any methodology or process to carrying out the research?

9:17Not really. Regarding the research, I mean, because first you need to do this research background for the clients. So, that's a little bit. You need to understand their internal procedures there. And it's where you have the conversation with the clients. You need to meet them. You need to understand what they need from you. And especially, what are the learning objectives of an exercise? So, there is no specific method to do this background research, you know.

9:48And then you need to understand, okay, what are the needs and what you can propose. And then you make a proposal. And then they see if it's fine or not. So, there is no proper methodology. But I think if you don't understand how the organization of your client is working, it's quite difficult to have an impactful simulation for their staff. In your experience, what are the essential elements a good simulation has to have?

10:24Well, I would say that first you need to have this creation of... And I remember from one of our conductor workshops, you know, we spoke about that. It's really to create complexity, ambiguity, and uncertainty with realism. And I would say meaningful decision points. That's really important. So, it should make people think, questions, assumptions, work through dilemmas, and not just having tick boxes.

10:55Also, you need to have a very good facilitation from experts that know what they are talking about. And I think the experience must be immersive, but still structured, you know, just to reflect and learn from. The simulation also needs to finish with a soft landing. So, at the end of the day, your simulation needs to have an end. You know, that's really important. It cannot stay suspended. And I always think, especially with my team, we need to add spice into the different injects,

11:33you know. So, you need to create this noisy content, means disinformation, that will distract the participants from their goal. Because, in reality, you would have the amount of information coming, and you will have to do this pre-selection of what is important, what is not important. And I would add also the mix with planned content and spontaneous one. Because when you are running a simulation, I always think that even if you have your planned

12:04content that you can send to your participants, you see their reactions. And to integrate roleplayers, creating spontaneous injects in real time, help as well to make this realism. So, I would say that they're key essentials for me for a good simulation. Those are really good ones. I really like that idea of having roleplayers to make it feel like it's an alive environment,

12:37because you are paying attention to what the players are saying or experiencing, and then they are injecting information that couldn't be there unless you are actively listening to what's happening in the room. And I think that improves engagement a lot, because I think it makes players really looking forward to seeing what's going to happen next. Is that your experience? Is that how you, what you've seen in the room?

13:11Yeah, exactly. I mean, the fact that you could react, I would say, in life to their reactions put more complexity because they see that, you know, for example, if we imagine a case where they will send some, they will answer to some emails, you know, then they would wait for an answer. And if your roleplay, for example, would respond to these emails, then, you know, the realism will be better in the sense that they will say, okay, wow, actually, you know, even if we are in the

13:44simulation, we have live reactions. So we need to continue corresponding with that stakeholder, for example. And I think they kind of like it. I mean, it's what we are seeing in the feedback. Oh, great. And how do you decide on the scenario you want to create? So it really depends, actually, Belen, first on the context, on the learning objectives of your exercise, as we spoke before, also the level of your audience, because, you know, we need to

14:18understand, like, what, I mean, what kind of position the different participants have, also the level of complexity you want in a simulation, and finally, finally, the time that you have at your disposal to deliver this exercise. So I think these different parameters are essential to take into consideration when you want to decide which scenario you want to create. Sometimes it's based on real-world threats that the client is facing, but all the time,

14:51he can be a simulation that is already prepared by the clients, but they want to be supported with the most up-to-date technology, which is for his conductor. And in this sense, they want to, you know, go a step further and make sure that this simulation reflects a little bit the, I would say, the technology of how information are coming with the different channels and how they are responding and not doing anymore the tabletop exercise where

15:29you are giving inject on paper. And, of course, you want to stretch, also, the people's thinking. So I would have these different parameters on the scenario that you want to create. You have to take a lot into consideration to make sure that you run a successful experience for your players. And do you have any best practices regarding scenario design, per se? I mean, it depends on the type of simulation that you want.

16:00I mean, for crisis management simulation, you need to simulate typical crisis management teams and specific roles. So the roles that you are giving to your team or to the member of your team should reflect the reality of the roles that they would have, you know, in their daily work. As we said before, create complexity, ambiguity, uncertainty. That's, for me, one of the most important things. Also, to apply the knowledge that they have and to develop muscle memory.

16:37And what I call about this muscle memory is to have some tools, but to continue, continue, continue to practice these tools, you know, and that becomes what we call the muscle memory. Another thing that we are addressing a lot in our simulation is to develop trust.

16:58Trust among the team. Because without trust, it's going to be very difficult to handle different crises. So aside the fact that we are doing, we are checking technical skills, we are also seeing behavioral skills there. And developing trust and resilience is part of our simulation design. You need, of course, to have a safe and conducive environment. So participants should feel comfortable. They should be safe with the exercise.

17:31Of course, you enable individual and organizational reflection and behaviors. You need also to create positive stress that would impact the learning. Also to assess the leadership capacity and capability. And in real crisis, there is no single narrative. So in the simulation design, you should have, you know, these different events that are developing in parallel. And of course, the component of misinformation, it's central and needs to be integrated to your simulation.

18:09So I would think that these components are the best practices for a good simulation design. I really like that you're talking about how you approach exercising in team mode, let's say, because you have different roles in a crisis management team. And you have the different roles might be receiving different pieces of information that they have

18:43to compare, and you have to check if they're true or not, all that misinformation aspect. And that's the way to really build trust, right? Like having the team experience through team dynamics and behaviors, what the crisis and the pressure and emotional pressure of a crisis would be. So do you facilitate the scenarios you design?

Facilitating Scenarios

19:08Do you get to see those team dynamics live? Yes. So my team is facilitating the scenario we design. And sometimes we are co-facilitating with our clients. For me, my role is more into the technical facilitation, where I'm making sure that the simulation platform is working technically on the conductor platform. So we are running our simulation in person or in virtual mode, depending on the setup. And what we are doing usually is that we start by introducing the context to our participants,

19:42letting them know ritual they will play as a team. And inside the team, we are assigning them individual roles as well. And we need to make sure that it's enough clear for them. Then we do a technical onboarding of the simulation platform, how they can interact with the different channels. And finally, we send always the first injecting plenary as a nice breaker, you know. And most of the time, it's a news flash. Then they are sent into the physical or the virtual breakout rooms that reflect a real crisis cell.

20:20So if you are in in-person trainings, we'll have a table with different chairs. And then we'll have a big screen. And then they are all looking at the screen and the different inject coming and coming. And they can, they have different material like whiteboard, flip chart, and they can write their thinkings. They can do brainstorming together. They have post-its, you know. So we really try to reflect this crisis cell. And during the simulation, my team and I, we are coordinating together. Should we, I would say, speed up or slow down the pace of the exercise?

20:53Depending on how the participants are evolving, how they are reacting, we are controlling the pace of the simulation in life. And sometimes we can do some timeout to ask, where are we now? So we all go back in plenary and we say, okay, where are we now? And what is your assessment of the situation? And then they go back again to the exercise. Or what we can do from type bit, it's kind of rare.

21:24But what we can do as well is to swipe up the team leader in teams.

21:30Why would you do that? Or how would you do that? So actually, you would ask the two team leaders, for example, if you have two teams, two team leaders to come. And then we say, okay, so team leader in team one, you go to team two and vice versa. And then they need to adapt to a new team dynamic. That is more a little bit to develop also the leadership for different managers. That's a really good tip to make sure that you're focusing on the leadership skills with different teams.

22:04So, yeah, really good one. Okay. And are there any tips for setting up an exercise or preparing the participants for an exercise? So, I would say that to set up an exercise, this is essential to do some dry runs. First with your clients, because you need to validate the content or design with them first. Because they know what they are talking about. And you are not in the organization. So, that's really important. Then you need to polish it in a very detailed approach on the customization of your inject.

22:36For me, how your simulation looks like is where they will get more into it. And a simulation needs some time to be impactful. And you need to come back to the design and to the details as much as needed. So, you have a lot of back and forth, you know, with the clients. Then dry run from a technical side with the simulation platform is essential because you need to make sure that everything will work smoothly on the D-Day.

23:08Especially when you are delivering the simulation abroad or in the field. Making sure that all the equipment is there, especially in-person training. And then for the participants, we try to not prepare them too much in advance. As usually, as you know, crises are unpredictable. And you need to adapt very quickly to what is happening. So, what is important is to make sure, as I mentioned before, that they get their roles as a team. And for some case, as an individual.

23:40Because then they need to understand on which angle they should respond to the incident or to the crisis. So, for me, the clarity of roles are essential before you start the simulation. But we don't give them background readings or, you know, just the context of the situation. We try to put them out of their comfort zone. That they can learn, we think, more. Definitely, yeah. Clarity about the roles and then you're free to go and explore the world.

24:12Okay. And once the exercise is done, do you conduct after-action reviews? If so, how do you approach them? So, we conduct some after-action review because for us, it's really the most important learning part. And we do what we call the technical and the behavioral review. So, first, you have a little bit of reflective observation. This is where participants reflect on their experience and what they learn from it.

24:44And in the world of adult learning, it has been recognized that reflection is an important, if not the most important part of the learning process. In the technical review, what we do is that we simulate some role play where the participants have to report to a board, depending on the context, and they present their findings. So, each of the team will present their findings and you can see how the teams respond differently to the task.

25:14So, you can compare a little bit the different approaches that they have. And the thing is not to evaluate them by saying, that was good or that was bad, but what they can do better next time. And from there, it's where the participants can start to think, what I will do differently next time? And the participants will need to make a comparison about what they have done and reflected upon and what they already know. And actually, they think of concrete actions.

25:47What do I need to keep doing? What do I need to stop doing? Why do I need to do differently? Because of the experience. And what I like, I would say the most, it's the behavioral review. It's like they usually go back to their rooms in their teams and discuss how they organize themselves as a team. Where there were some disagreements inside the member of the teams. How do they listen to each other? Which style of decision making they choose?

26:19If it was a more analytical approach or a more, I would say, experience-based approach. And how do they distribute the task among themselves? Because you will see some participants who will look at the screen at the same time. And some of them will say, okay, you look at the screen, but then the other can work on this task on this task. So you can really see how they are organizing themselves and how do they coordinate themselves. And that's very interesting.

26:49So they do that inside the teams directly. That's really good. I think there are lots of practical experience tips that you're sharing because you've been there seeing what's most valuable. I mean, I really like that behavioral approach and how you give them the chance to discover themselves, their team dynamics and reflect on them. Okay, so this will be the last question, Clementine.

27:23To wrap up, what advice would you give to your younger self starting in this field? What do you wish you had known earlier? So I would say, Belen, that I think the most important message that I would like to give to my younger self starting in this field would be that if you have the potential and all the competencies for certain markets, trust yourself and go for it. You know, be passionate about it, for what you want to achieve in your future, and to contribute for a better world, of course.

27:57And what I understand and what I learned from people who have even more experience than I in crisis management is that it's all about people. Crisis management, it's all about people. It should be your first priority. Oh, that's so good. It matches completely with my, you know, with my strong interest in human rights. So it's all about people. So it's like the circle is closing, right? Exactly. Where you started and then you're finding that that passion made sense and how the important thing is people.

28:35Well, Clementine, thank you very much for sharing your knowledge and practical approach to scenario recreation. It's been rich with tips and insights. I really appreciate that you shared all those with our audience. Thank you very much and have a nice day. Thank you so much, Peren. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

29:06Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.