BSE 308: Exercise Design & Recertification Architecture

How to read this course. BSE 308 (Exercise Design & Recertification Architecture) is a Diamond-tier course written for practitioners and assessors who must prove — not assume — that a community can respond to a Black Sky Event. The curriculum has walked the community, islanded its power, hardened its controls, and designed its economic sustainment framework in BSE 306 (Community Economic Framework & Tier 0S Delivery Architecture); this course teaches how to design, facilitate, and evaluate the exercises that verify all of it under stress. The governing doctrine is Trust but Verify: the community is trusted to understand its own systems, and that knowledge is verified through exercise design — the design process itself is the rigor. You will learn the evidence hierarchy that places live exercise evidence above assumption, documentation, inspection, and simulation; how to build a credible scenario with timed injects; how to calibrate stress so it tests capability without overwhelming it; how to structure observers and collect honest data; how to set measurable evaluation thresholds; how to facilitate a full-scale exercise including participant briefing, rules of engagement, observer coordination, real-time incident response, and debrief; how to run tabletop and simulation alternatives; and how to design the annual recertification cadence that keeps capability from decaying. This course does not conclude what any law permits: live exercises must be accomplished in accordance with local legal guidance, and every question of liability and use-of-force routes to in-house or local counsel. Scoring frameworks belong to GOV 108 and BSE 201; certification-body mechanics belong to BSE 305; this course owns exercise design and the recertification requirement, and it produces the evidence those frameworks consume.

Exercise design, facilitation, and recertification architecture for critical infrastructure resilience (Diamond tier; hard prerequisites: the 099 -> 100 -> 101 -> 102 foundation chain and the Common Paid Core of BSE 104 and GOV 106/107/108, plus BSE 306 (Community Economic Framework & Tier 0S Delivery Architecture); GOV 111-113, BSE 201, BSE 205, BSE 207, and BSE 112 are advisory). Written for practitioners and assessors, the course teaches how to design exercises that prove operational capability under stress rather than assume it: defining learning objectives and the evidence hierarchy, constructing credible scenarios with timed injects, calibrating stress, collecting observer data, setting measurable evaluation thresholds, facilitating full-scale operations including observer coordination and real-time incident response, running tabletop and simulation alternatives, designing the annual recertification cadence, documenting evidence for longevity, grounding exercise evidence in Tier 0S governance, and validating results into a binding recertification plan. The governing doctrine is Trust but Verify: the community is trusted to know its own systems, and that knowledge is verified through rigorous exercise design. This course does not provide legal advice: live exercises must be accomplished in accordance with local legal guidance, and every question of liability, use-of-force authorization, and incident-response protocol routes to in-house or local counsel. FIR does not certify the lawfulness of exercises and does not waive liability. Scoring frameworks are owned by GOV 108 and BSE 201; this course produces the exercise evidence those frameworks consume. Certification-body mechanics are owned by BSE 305; this course teaches the recertification requirement and interface. Audience: practitioners and assessors.