By Matt Swartz
Scenario-based training has become one of the most valuable tools in modern law enforcement. Whether it’s a force-on-force exercise, a domestic disturbance scenario or a practical exercise, the goal is the same: Give officers the opportunity to think, decide, communicate and act under realistic conditions.
Most trainers agree that realistic training is important. The challenge is determining what makes a scenario not only realistic, but effective.
In a previous article, I argued that law enforcement training should focus on developing judgment rather than simply exposing officers to stress. That discussion naturally leads to another question: If judgment is a performance skill, how should we train it?
Too often, I believe we ask the wrong question. Rather than asking what officers should learn from a scenario, we focus on how realistic we can make it appear. We add noise, resistant role players, time pressure, distractions and emotional stress. None of those elements are inherently bad. Police work is stressful, and officers should be prepared to perform under those conditions. The problem arises when we confuse stress with learning.
A scenario can be loud, chaotic, physically demanding and emotionally exhausting while producing very little meaningful learning. Conversely, a well-designed scenario can create significant learning opportunities without relying on maximum intensity. Scenario design is more important than scenario intensity.
That statement often surprises people because law enforcement training has traditionally emphasized preparing officers to perform under pressure. Many trainers assume that if stress is valuable, more stress must be better. My argument is not that stress should be removed from training. My argument is that stress is a tool, not the objective. The objective is improved performance.
Throughout my career training officers, supervisors and instructors from agencies of all sizes and missions, one lesson has consistently emerged: Effective learning rarely occurs because a student experienced stress. It occurs because the student was required to think.
Every scenario teaches something. The question is whether it teaches what you intended.
If a scenario rewards speed above all else, officers learn speed. If it rewards aggression regardless of context, officers learn aggression. If it rewards communication, information gathering, patience, assessment and problem-solving, officers learn those behaviors.
The design of the scenario determines what gets practiced — and ultimately what officers learn.
When communication changes the outcome
Communication is one of the most frequently used tools available to law enforcement officers. Officers communicate on virtually every call for service, yet communication skills often receive far less realistic practice than force skills. As I discussed in my previous article, communication is a performance skill. Like any performance skill, it must be practiced under conditions that resemble the environment in which it will be used.
Communication training is challenging because human behavior is complex. Officers routinely encounter people who are angry, frightened, intoxicated, experiencing a mental health crisis, grieving, confused, suicidal or hostile toward law enforcement. Every encounter is different, and the possible combinations are nearly endless.
Some trainers look at that complexity and conclude that communication cannot be effectively trained through scenarios because there are simply too many variables. I would argue the opposite.
The purpose of communication scenarios is not to teach officers how to communicate with every possible type of person. That would be impossible. Instead, the goal is to provide opportunities for officers to assess, adapt, communicate and reassess while managing uncertainty. Those are the same skills officers rely on every day in the field.
Good scenario design creates opportunities for meaningful decisions. Officers must gather information, interpret behavior, assess risk, solve problems and adapt their approach as circumstances change. The outcome should be influenced by the quality of the officer’s decisions and communication. Poor scenario design often does the opposite.
I have seen domestic disturbance scenarios where instructors invested tremendous effort into creating stress while giving little thought to whether the officer’s decisions actually influenced the outcome. Family members yelled over one another, emotions ran high and distractions were introduced throughout the exercise. The scenario certainly felt realistic. However, the role players were scripted toward a predetermined ending regardless of what the officer said or did.
A more effective design would allow the officer’s communication to influence events. Information gathering, active listening, tactical patience and problem-solving could either calm the situation or contribute to its escalation. The stress remains, but the learning objective changes.
The officer is no longer being evaluated on how much stress they can endure. Instead, the officer is being evaluated on how effectively they think, communicate and make decisions within that stress.
Many scenarios unintentionally become “gotcha” exercises. The role player is scripted toward a predetermined ending, and the instructor already knows how the scenario is supposed to conclude. The officer’s communication, assessment and decision-making have little impact on the outcome. The student experiences stress, but the learning opportunity is limited because the scenario was never truly about making decisions.
Real police work rarely unfolds that way. Officers routinely operate with incomplete information. They encounter competing priorities, conflicting accounts, uncertainty and rapidly changing circumstances. Most calls are not defined by extreme violence. They are defined by ambiguity.
Realism is not created by making a scenario louder. Realism is created by making it relevant.
A realistic domestic disturbance may involve conflicting stories, emotional family members, uncertainty, communication challenges and incomplete information. A realistic mental health call may require patience, active listening, assessment and problem-solving. Neither situation requires maximum intensity, yet both require sound judgment. That is where learning occurs.
Why scenario design matters
One of the biggest misconceptions in law enforcement training is that realistic scenarios must always be highly stressful. In reality, many of the most important decisions officers make occur before force is ever used. They happen while gathering information, assessing risk, communicating with people and determining the best course of action.
Those are judgment skills. Those are communication skills. Those are the skills that deserve the same deliberate training design law enforcement has historically devoted to force skills.
For decades, agencies have invested tremendous effort in developing use-of-force training. We teach legal standards, tactics and articulation. We conduct drills, practical exercises and reality-based scenarios designed to improve performance under pressure.
Communication deserves that same level of intentional development.
If communication is one of the most frequently used tools available to officers, then communication training should be designed with the same care and purpose as any other critical skill. We should create opportunities for officers to practice listening, information gathering, emotional regulation, persuasion, assessment and decision-making under realistic conditions.
The goal is not simply to expose officers to stress. The goal is to create learning experiences that improve performance.
If that is our objective, it raises an important question: What framework should trainers use when designing scenarios?
Before writing a scenario, selecting role players or deciding how much realism or stress to introduce, I believe trainers should answer four questions.
1. What am I actually trying to teach?
Every scenario should begin with a clearly defined learning objective. If the objective is communication, then communication should influence the outcome. If the objective is judgment, officers should be required to make meaningful decisions. If the objective is information gathering, the scenario should reward curiosity rather than speed.
2. What decisions do I want officers to make?
A well-designed scenario should create opportunities for officers to assess information, adapt their communication, solve problems and choose among multiple reasonable responses. If the scenario reaches the same conclusion regardless of what the officer says or does, it may be creating stress without developing judgment.
3. How does communication influence the outcome?
Many of the most important decisions officers make occur long before force is considered. If better communication, active listening, patience or improved information gathering cannot change the direction of the scenario, trainers should ask whether they are truly evaluating communication — or simply observing it.
4. What did the scenario actually teach?
Every scenario teaches something. The question is whether it taught what was intended. If officers leave believing success was determined primarily by their ability to endure stress, then the design deserves another look. If they leave with a better understanding of how judgment, communication and decision-making influenced the outcome, then the scenario has accomplished something far more valuable than simply exposing them to pressure.
Better scenarios build better officers
Whether you’re training communication, judgment or tactical decision-making, the same principle applies: Scenario design is more important than scenario intensity because officers learn from the decisions they are required to make — not from the amount of stress they experience.
Stress has an important place in law enforcement training. Officers must be prepared to perform under pressure, and realistic scenarios should reflect the demands of the job. But stress should serve the learning objective, not become the learning objective.
When scenarios are designed thoughtfully, they do more than expose performance. They develop it. They create opportunities for officers to gather information, communicate effectively, adapt to changing circumstances and make sound decisions under realistic conditions. Those are the skills officers rely on every day, and they deserve the same deliberate attention that agencies have long devoted to tactical and use-of-force training.
The future of law enforcement training is not about creating harder scenarios. It is about creating better ones—scenarios that reward judgment, reinforce communication and help officers become better decision-makers.
Stress may expose performance. Design develops it.
About the author
Matt Swartz is a veteran law enforcement officer, instructor, and national speaker whose career spans more than three decades of patrol service, federal instruction, and use-of-force analysis. His professional work centers on how police officers make decisions under stress, how those decisions are later reviewed, and how training and leadership can better prepare officers not only to survive critical incidents, but to sustain long, defensible careers in modern policing.
Matt has served in both military and civilian law enforcement roles and later as a federal law enforcement instructor, teaching decision-making, de-escalation, and force articulation to officers from agencies across the United States. A certified Force Science Institute analyst, he integrates research on human performance under stress into scenario-based training and supervisory review practices.
His experience was featured in “Blood Lessons: What Cops Learn from Life-or-Death Encounters” by Charles Remsberg, and his story of injury, recovery and return to duty has appeared in national media, books and Police1. He currently serves as a sworn deputy sheriff assigned to training, where he focuses on developing career-long models that strengthen judgment, support accountability and improve officer longevity in the video era.
