Run it yourself — free

The tabletop, with the paperwork that counts.

Six to ten people, one room, 90 minutes, your designated facilitator guided step-by-step. You leave with the artifact set grant reviewers actually look for — situation manual, sign-in sheet, participant feedback, and an AAR/IP — modeled on the CISA tabletop-package format. CISA's 100+ scenario library still had no GNSS scenario at our July 2026 check; now you do.

Which track is this? This is the public-safety / emergency-management version of the GPS-denial scenario — written to the U.S. FEMA/HSEEP exercise standard so an emergency manager can run it for grant credit. Running it for a diplomatic or policy team instead? The same scenario works — skip the FEMA-specific paperwork and email us for the policy-facing facilitation notes.

Why this counts

GNSS-Denial Tabletop — Facilitator Kit

EMPG recipients must maintain an exercise program consistent with HSEEP, and FEMA explicitly encourages AAR/IPs from tabletops that validate critical plans (submitted within 90 days, via your state). States make it concrete — Oregon, for example, credits a discussion-based exercise on exactly three artifacts: situation manual, AAR, sign-in sheet. This kit produces all three, plus the feedback forms and evaluation guide the doctrine names. HSEEP-consistent, not “HSEEP-certified” — no certification exists; credit decisions rest with your state administrative agency, so confirm local requirements with them.

1 · Exercise objectives (edit before the session)

HSEEP runs objectives-first, and FEMA discourages submissions that read as awareness sessions — so each objective must name the specific plan, annex, or system being examined. Discussion exercises examine; they are never graded.

Examine this jurisdiction's ability to recognize a GNSS disruption affecting [NAME THE SYSTEM — e.g., CAD timestamps, P25 simulcast timing, AVL] and distinguish it from equipment failure, using the confirm-first sequence.
Examine the decision process and thresholds in [NAME THE PLAN BEING VALIDATED — e.g., EOP Communications Annex §_, COOP Annex §_] for operating through degraded positioning or timing.
Examine this jurisdiction's ability to issue accurate public alerts and warnings during a GNSS disruption, including the decision to alert, drafting, and dissemination paths [satisfies the EMPG alert-and-warning exercise objective requirement].

2 · Situation manual (SitMan) — scenario & modules

Scenario. Over roughly six hours of a single operational day, GPS reliability degrades across the region — first intermittent timing faults in dispatch systems, then position errors in field units, against the backdrop of a documented national pattern (use the lab’s verified tracker rows as real-world anchors; the self-guided exercise carries the full inject narrative your facilitator reads aloud). All scenario material is drawn from public sources and contains no how-to detail — it rehearses consequences, not techniques.

Clock	Agenda
0:00	Welcome, ground rules, objectives — name the plan on the table (10 min)
0:10	Module 1 · Recognition: something is wrong with timing/position (20 min)
0:30	Module 2 · Operating degraded: the plan meets reality (25 min)
0:55	Module 3 · Public communication & reporting up (20 min)
1:15	Hotwash: what worked, what didn't — captured verbatim (10 min)
1:25	Close: corrective-action candidates, owners volunteered (5 min)

Ground rules (read aloud): no-fault, non-attribution; the plan is being examined, not the people; assumptions stated as assumptions; phones down, notetaker named.

3 · Facilitating the room (the craft, not just the paperwork)

HSEEP notes a tabletop needs an experienced facilitator. If yours is designated rather than professional, this section is their brief: keep the room no-fault, keep it inside the scenario, and turn discussion into corrective actions with owners. Ask, don't tell — the facilitator's job is the next question, never the answer.

Module 1 · Recognition — probing questions:

Who else, right now, is seeing a piece of this that we aren't — and what would make them call us?
What would you need to see to treat this as interference rather than an equipment fault — and who owns saying so out loud?
If this turns out to be nothing, what did raising it early actually cost us?

Module 2 · Operating degraded — probing questions:

Which of our systems take time or position from this signal, and what does the plan say each one does when it degrades?
How long can each critical system coast before something operational breaks — and is that answer written down anywhere we could find today?
What are we taking out of service on a hunch, and who is authorized to make that call?

Module 3 · Public communication & reporting up — probing questions:

What can we say at the next briefing that is true, calming, and won't be contradicted by tonight?
Who owns the public message when three agencies each own a piece of the problem?
Where does this incident get reported upward — and whose name is on filing it?

Three rooms every facilitator eventually meets:

The room	The play
The silent room	Don't fill the silence — redirect it. Put the open question to a named seat ("Dispatch owns this piece — what does your desk do first?"). If the whole table stays quiet, shrink the question until it is answerable ("Forget the plan for a second — who would you phone first?") and build on whatever answer comes back.
The dominated room	Harvest, credit, rotate: "That's three concrete actions from operations — before we go deeper, I want the comms and finance seats on record for this inject (the scenario development on the table)." Then give the dominant voice the recorder's job — "capture that as a corrective-action candidate, with an owner" — so their energy lands in the paperwork instead of over the room.
The room that argues with the scenario	Don't defend the inject — trade it: "Fine — assume it is an equipment fault. What do you do in the next hour, and how is that different?" If the actions converge either way, say so out loud; that convergence is itself a finding. Note the objection for the after-action review and move on.

Optional move for rooms running this for a policy or leadership team rather than for exercise credit, borrowed from matrix-style wargaming: before resolving a contested decision, have one participant make the strongest two-minute case that the action succeeds and another the strongest case that it fails — then let the room decide, and write the reasoning down. It surfaces assumptions a straight discussion leaves buried, and the recorded arguments drop directly into the after-action analysis.

4 · Sign-in sheet

Name	Organization / role	Email	Signature

5 · Evaluation guide (per objective)

Objective	Observed strengths	Observed areas for improvement
Objective 1
Objective 2
Objective 3

CISA’s tabletop packages ship without a per-objective evaluation guide (re-checked July 2026); HSEEP’s documentation table names one. Assign a notetaker-evaluator who does not play.

6 · Participant feedback form (hand out at the hotwash)

Three questions, verbatim capture: (1) What worked that we should keep? (2) What would have failed on a real Tuesday? (3) What one corrective action would you own, by when?

7 · AAR/IP — the product

The after-action report follows the HSEEP structure: exercise overview · analysis of each objective (engagement-based language — “examined in discussion,” never pass/fail) · strengths (3–5, tied to objectives) · areas for improvement (no-fault, with consequence if unaddressed) · the improvement plan table — corrective action, capability element, responsible organization, named point of contact, start date, target completion date. The self-guided exercise generates this document from your session and prints it with a proper filename; fill the owner and date columns in the room, not after. EMPG subrecipients: route it to your state per their window — the federal rule is 90 days to the Regional EMPG Program Manager.

8 · Integrated Preparedness Plan alignment (one paragraph, often skipped, decides credit)

In your AAR/IP overview, state which priority in your jurisdiction’s multi-year Integrated Preparedness Plan this exercise supports, and which core capabilities it examined (e.g., Operational Communications; Situational Assessment; Public Information and Warning). An exercise that doesn’t trace to the IPP is an afternoon; one that does is part of your program.

Basis & boundary: structured on FEMA’s HSEEP doctrine (2020) and modeled on the CISA CTEP package format — public-domain U.S. Government doctrine, independently packaged. Diplo Space is not affiliated with FEMA or CISA, and this kit is educational material provided as-is — not legal or grant advice, not professional services, and no warranty of completeness: confirm requirements with your state administrative agency and rely on your own planning team’s judgment. HSEEP notes a tabletop needs an experienced facilitator — this kit guides yours step-by-step; if you’d rather we run it, that’s the paid format, prices published.

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