Distributed Mission Training (DMT) provides enhanced realism to simulation-based training events by involving numerous friendly and adversary forces. Given the added complexity of this environment, instructors in DMT environments have a cognitively-complex job that involves maintaining awareness of a vast amount of information, making rapid decisions, conducting performance diagnosis, executing actions to control the simulation, and developing AAR materials. The present work was an investigation to determine the strategies used by instructors to manage DMT exercises. The analysis provided insights regarding software tools that might alleviate the cognitive load imposed on instructors during DMT events. Both the scientific literature and current practices of DMT instructors were examined. The literature revealed little useful information regarding specific strategies and tools that instructors use to manage exercises and enhance training value but did provide insights regarding new ways to capture and represent essential aspects of DMT exercise manipulation. To assess current practices of instructors, interviews were conducted with seven instructors at the Naval Strike and Air Warfare Center and four instructors representing Army, Navy SEAL, and Air Force DMT domains. The interviews revealed that: 1) instructors thoroughly plan and identify contingencies in a scenario before an exercise, 2) despite such thorough planning, scenario execution involves a significant amount of exercise manipulation, and 3) manipulations are generally administered to maintain training integrity and preserve safety. Overall, the findings implied several opportunities for instructor support tools that facilitate: manipulation administration, prediction of manipulation effects, linking manipulations to training objectives, and instructor-instructor collaboration for both coordination and administration of manipulations.