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CyberTabletop

Glossary

Hotwash

The structured debrief held immediately after an exercise or incident, capturing what worked, what did not and the most important fixes.

A hotwash is the immediate, facilitated debrief at the end of an exercise (or after a real incident), while memories are fresh. It typically lasts 15 to 30 minutes and involves all players.

A simple hotwash structure is:

  1. a round-robin in which each role shares one thing that worked and one that did not;
  2. a read-back of the main gaps and parking-lot items captured by the scribe;
  3. agreement on the top three improvements and who should own them;
  4. feedback on the exercise itself, such as realism and timing.

The hotwash is informal and quick. It is not the final analysis: its output feeds the written after-action report, which combines hotwash feedback with scribe notes and evaluator ratings.

Protect time for the hotwash in the agenda. When earlier modules overrun, cut an optional inject rather than the debrief. See facilitating a tabletop exercise.