Experience the challenge of real-world decision-making
Hydra crisis simulation exercises create realistic, immersive environments in which participants confront complex and challenging situations, make decisions and experience how events unfold in response to their actions.
Each exercise is designed around the needs of the organisation, drawing on real-world challenges and professional experience. Scenarios span a wide range of sectors, including policing, emergency services, health and social care, education, local and central government, and the commercial world. From critical incidents and safeguarding to organisational change, strategic leadership and complex business decisions, Hydra provides an environment in which participants can explore the challenges, competing priorities and uncertainties they encounter in their professional lives.
The exercises can form part of an organisation's crisis management training. Hydra provides a unique opportunity to examine how decisions are made under pressure, how individuals and teams respond to uncertainty, and how different perspectives influence outcomes. By making the decision-making process visible, participants can critically reflect on their reasoning, challenge established thinking and develop a deeper understanding of the consequences of their choices.
Scenario-based training: how a Hydra exercise works
Participants work in small groups, known as syndicates, responding to a carefully constructed scenario that unfolds over time. As new information emerges, they must interpret events, consider competing priorities, make decisions and explain the reasoning behind them.
Throughout the exercise, participants encounter realistic challenges, often involving incomplete or conflicting information, competing demands and difficult choices. Their decisions are recorded, allowing the thinking behind them to be explored through facilitated discussion, both within their syndicates and alongside others taking part in the exercise.
The real value of Hydra lies not simply in the decisions reached, but in understanding how and why those decisions were made, and what can be learned from the different approaches taken.
Hydra simulation environments
Hydra can be delivered through permanent, mobile and virtual simulation environments, each built around the same established methodology. This flexibility allows organisations to experience the benefits of immersive, facilitated learning without necessarily investing in a dedicated facility.
Hydra Suite
The traditional Hydra Suite is a purpose-designed, permanent simulation facility comprising interconnected syndicate rooms, plenary facilities and a central control room. Participants work in separate groups, responding to unfolding events through realistic communications, briefings and other information.
The control room manages the exercise, introduces new developments and responds to participants' decisions, creating a dynamic and immersive environment for exploring complex decision-making.
Mobile Hydra
Mobile Hydra brings the simulation environment to the organisation, using portable technology to recreate the essential features of a permanent Hydra Suite within existing premises.
This allows exercises to be delivered in meeting rooms, training facilities and other suitable locations, providing flexibility without compromising the underlying Hydra methodology.
Hydra Presence
Hydra Presence extends the methodology into a virtual environment, allowing participants, facilitators and exercise controllers to take part from different locations.
Using integrated communication and simulation technologies, participants work in virtual syndicates, receive evolving information, make and record decisions, and engage in facilitated discussion.
Hydra Presence enables organisations to bring together people and expertise across geographical boundaries, whilst retaining the essential principles of immersive simulation, collaborative decision-making and structured reflection.
Learning and analysis during and after Hydra exercises
Hydra provides opportunities for learning throughout the exercise and beyond. Through DLabs, we can capture and analyse participants' discussions alongside their recorded decisions, providing valuable insights into how individuals and teams interpret information, respond to uncertainty and develop their thinking.
During exercises, emerging themes, differences in approach and patterns of decision-making can be identified to support facilitators, inform plenary discussions and encourage participants to explore their reasoning while the experience is still fresh.
Following the exercise, more detailed analysis brings together the discussions and decision logs from across syndicates, identifying common themes, contrasting perspectives, underlying assumptions and opportunities for improvement.
The result is a richer, evidence-informed understanding of both the decisions made and the thinking behind them. By combining analytical capability with the professional judgement of experienced facilitators, Hydra helps turn individual and collective experience into meaningful organisational learning.
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New to simulation? Read our guide to what a crisis simulation exercise involves.