Outline

You cannot easily know how you and your colleagues will perform when a crisis occurs. One option is to wait until the worse happens and rely on them to 'step up' when the moment is right. This might work but it is risky. The alternative is to work through crisis situations and practice the thinking and decision making skills everyone needs (and probably has).

Practice reduces the risk of 'decision paralysis'. The Crisis game is not designed to encourage standard answers to a set problem, but instead create a dynamic environment in which the key skills are practised in real time. The interactive and dynamic nature of the game brings out styles of decision making and communication and allows us, as part of the debriefing and evaluation stages, to review and reflect on “...what just happened there?”.
So the game tests crisis responses – and puts players under pressures such as information overload and not enough time – with the aim of normalising that experience so that when (or if) it occurs the participant is less likely to freeze.

The game is developed for you to specifically address crisis situations for your organisation. Drawing on some tried and tested templates, Stone Paper Scissors can create a game for your group or organisation to help you look at how you function in a crisis, such as business continuity, reputational damage or cyber threat. This might be directly related to your day to day activities, or we can create a fictionalised scenario that contains similar elements and challenges. In our experience, either approach generates some excellent outcomes.

Game Play

In 'The Crisis' the players take on roles within an organisation about to face an unexpected crisis. Background information is provided on these roles. The crisis then unfolds as the facilitators inject information about unfolding events. Players then plan, act and respond in real time to this information – and might modify their actions as new information comes in or information on the situation changes. They also get feedback on the impact of their decisions within the scenario.

At the end of the game there is a debrief of the process and how decision-making and communications worked both within and between the teams. The debrief also looks at communication style and behavioural patterns. Teams have the opportunity to reflect on how their decision making was affected by the time pressure and changing crisis environment and how this might inform their practice and planning in future.

Ideal Audiences

• Organisations wishing to practice crisis response and organisational communication skills.
• Organisations seeking a team building challenge.
• Organisations wish to look at their risk management policies and procedures.

Game Capacity

The Crisis is scalable to reflect the size of the organisation group wishing to play.

For more information or to book us to run this game for you please fill in the form below: