Guide

What is a crisis simulation?

A crisis simulation drops decision-makers inside a crisis as it unfolds, so judgment gets tested under pressure rather than reviewed in hindsight. Here is how they work, who runs them, and where Force Majeure fits.

Definition

A decision environment, not a lecture.

A case study explains what a company should have done. A crisis simulation makes you decide while the facts are still moving and the clock is running. Choices compound, and the exercise shows where judgment held and where it broke.

Three shapes are common. A tabletop walks a team through one scenario in a room. A war game pits teams against each other or against a facilitator. A persistent-world simulation, the model Force Majeure uses, runs a firm through many linked crises so patterns and second-order effects surface over time.


What good ones do

Three things that separate a real exercise from a slideshow.

Pressure

Decide with what you have.

Choices happen with incomplete information and real time pressure, the conditions that actually break teams.

Specificity

Your map, not a script.

The strongest exercises run on your real sectors and geographies rather than a generic ransomware script.

A record

Something you can show.

A good simulation ends in a scored, written account of what happened and why, fit for a board or committee.


Where Force Majeure fits

A persistent-world crisis simulation, built from fieldwork.

Force Majeure runs a multinational across about 200 markets over 60 quarters, facing geopolitical, supply-chain, reputational, and social crises calibrated to real data such as V-Dem and ACLED. The scoring is calibrated to a 2021 Harvard Business Review finding that community-embedded firms were far more likely to stay profitable and to survive a crisis.

For organizations it becomes a rerunnable exercise scored into a board-ready report. For classrooms it becomes a graded simulation mapped to a casebook.


Key terms

Crisis exercise terms, defined.

Crisis simulation

A decision environment that puts people inside an unfolding crisis to test judgment under pressure, with consequences that carry forward.

Tabletop exercise

A facilitated walk-through of one scenario in a room, usually run once and debriefed verbally.

War game

An exercise that pits teams against each other or a facilitator to surface how decisions collide.

Persistent-world simulation

The model Force Majeure uses, running a firm through many linked crises so second-order effects surface over time.

After-action report

The written, scored record of what happened and why, fit for a board or risk committee.

Operational resilience

A firm's ability to keep delivering important services through disruption, and to evidence that it has tested for it.


Common questions

Crisis simulations, briefly.

How is a crisis simulation different from a case study?

A case study is reviewed after the outcome is known. A crisis simulation forces decisions while the situation is still unfolding, with consequences that carry forward, so it tests judgment rather than recall.

What should a crisis simulation produce?

Beyond the experience itself, a defensible record: a scored account of the decisions and their consequences that a board or risk committee can read.

How often should you run one?

Once a year is the common floor, and it is often too little. Rerunnable simulations let teams exercise quarterly as conditions change, the cadence resilience rules increasingly expect.

See the full FAQ.

Next step

Run it with a team, or teach it in a classroom.