Crisis management simulation for leadership teams: Crisis Room
The first hour of a crisis decides how it is remembered. Put your crisis team in the room before the real one starts.
- Ten timed injects with e-mails, posts, logs, voicemails and news
- Six roles: CEO, Communications, Legal, Operations, People, Finance
- Four live gauges: trust, media heat, legal exposure, operations
- Write real statements, scored for clarity, accuracy and empathy
Not sure yet? Try the free 3-round Price War first: no sign-up, about five minutes.
What is a good crisis management simulation for a leadership team?
Crisis Room is a live Bodhih Arena team exercise lasting 60, 90 or 120 minutes. A crisis team of six roles faces ten timed injects with realistic e-mails, posts and logs, makes decisions that move four live gauges and writes real statements. A facilitator runs it from a console, and a scored debrief follows.
What is Crisis Room?
Crisis Room is a live, timed crisis management simulation from Bodhih Arena. Teams take the roles of Chief Executive, Communications, Legal, Operations, People and Finance and respond to an unfolding crisis at an invented company. Ten injects arrive on a clock with artefacts such as e-mails, social posts, logs and voicemails. Decisions move four gauges: trust, media heat, legal exposure and operations. Teams also write holding statements and notices, which are scored for accuracy and empathy.
Crisis Room at a glance
| Format | Live crisis exercise, for teams |
|---|---|
| Length | 60, 90 or 120 minutes, live |
| Players | One or more teams per session, each member in a role |
| Devices | Any modern browser on a laptop, tablet or phone |
| Scoring | Decisions, speed, written tasks and the four gauges at the end |
| Credential | Open Badges 3.0 credential for each participant, with a public verification page |
| Competencies | Adaptability and Resilience (SPN.5.3), Decision Making (SPN.4.3) |
| LMS | LTI 1.3 launch from Canvas, Moodle, Blackboard or D2L, with grade passback; usable as a Bodhih pathway stage |
| Price for one person | Team format: register interest for an open cohort |
| Price per seat | $59 per seat, volume pricing by seat count |
Most crisis plans are tested for the first time on the worst day of the year
The plan sits in a folder nobody has opened
Roles look clear on paper. Under time pressure, two people brief the media, nobody calls the regulator and the staff hear the news on social media.
Speed and accuracy pull in opposite directions
Say nothing and the story is written for you. Say too much and you are correcting yourself by morning. Teams need to feel that tension, not just discuss it.
Tabletop exercises are hard to run well
Writing credible injects, keeping time and debriefing fairly takes days of preparation, and the result depends heavily on who is facilitating.
Here is the situation you walk into
In Midnight Leak, it is Thursday night at Quillfern Payments, a digital wallet and card company with 2.1 million customer accounts. An on-call engineer has found that a storage folder of nightly reconciliation exports has been readable from the public internet. Over the next 72 story hours, a researcher gets in touch, the leak reaches social media, the regulator calls, a vendor gets blamed, an internal chat leaks and a ransom e-mail arrives.
In Line 4, it is a Tuesday afternoon at Brackenmoor Foods, a snack maker with 2,300 staff. A fryer on Line 4 at its main plant catches fire and people are hurt. A worker’s video is online before the alarms stop. Families arrive, an old maintenance ticket surfaces, the biggest supermarket customer issues an ultimatum, the union speaks and a contamination rumour spreads.
Either way, you are the crisis team. Each inject has a response window. Your Chief Executive submits the team’s choice, your Communications lead drafts the statement with everyone watching the gauges, and silence when the window closes has its own cost.
How a run works
- STEP 1
Brief and roles
The facilitator chooses a scenario and a length of 60, 90 or 120 minutes, and assigns people to teams and roles. Each role gets a one-line brief on what it must protect.
- STEP 2
Injects arrive on the clock
Ten injects land on a schedule scaled to the session length. Each carries artefacts: e-mails, social posts, system logs, voicemails, chats, memos or news stories.
- STEP 3
Decide inside the window
Each inject offers three or four defensible options. The team debates in its war room and the CEO submits. The choice moves trust, media heat, legal exposure and operations.
- STEP 4
Write under pressure
Some injects need written work in a shared draft: a holding statement, a regulator notification, a message to staff, a customer notice or a response to a journalist, within a word limit and using only the facts given.
- STEP 5
The facilitator steers
From the console the facilitator can pause, release the next inject early, add five minutes or end the session, and watch every team’s gauges live.
- STEP 6
Debrief
Each inject has a debrief note on what was really going on and which crisis principles applied, with every team’s choices, timing, statements and gauge lines side by side.
Who Crisis Room is for
- Executive and leadership teams. Rehearse the first hours of a crisis as the team that would actually be in the room, and find the gaps in roles and approvals.
- Risk, resilience and business continuity leads. A ready-made, timed exercise with realistic artefacts and scoring, without weeks of scenario writing.
- Communications and corporate affairs teams. Practise holding statements, customer notices and media responses against the clock, with feedback on accuracy and tone.
- Business schools and executive education. A live crisis leadership session for MBA and executive classes that produces written work and a scored debrief.
Who should skip it
It is a learning exercise with invented companies, not a replacement for testing your own detailed incident or business continuity plan.
What your team can do after Crisis Room
Teams leave with a shared rhythm for the first hours of a crisis, and evidence of where their judgement, speed and writing held up.
Respond with speed and accuracy
Move fast inside the window without stating anything the facts do not yet support.
Speak with one voice
Agree who decides, who speaks and who updates staff, customers and regulators, and keep to it under pressure.
Put people first
Lead with the people affected, whether customers whose data was exposed or workers who were hurt, before the company’s own concerns.
Handle regulators well
Notify early, accurately and in the right form, and treat the regulator as a relationship rather than a threat.
Write statements that hold up
Draft holding statements and notices that are clear, accurate, empathetic and accountable, with a next-update time.
Learning goals
- Make sound decisions quickly with incomplete information
- Coordinate a crisis team across communications, legal, operations, people and finance
- Write accurate, empathetic crisis communications under time pressure
- Apply crisis principles: speed with accuracy, one voice, people first, no speculation, own what you know and a steady update cadence
Skills practised: Crisis leadership, Decision making under time pressure, Crisis communication, Stakeholder and regulator management, Team coordination, Written clarity, Strategic thinking about reputation.
Competencies scored
Sub-scores map to the open Bodhih Competency Spine, so results sit beside your other learning records.
What the debrief shows
- A timeline of every inject with each team’s choice, how strong it was, what it tended to lead to and how fast the team responded.
- Gauge lines for every team, showing where trust, media heat, legal exposure and operations moved.
- Each team’s written statements with their scores, and the strongest statement for each task.
- Team scores on decision quality, speed, written work and final gauges, with awards for Sound judgement, Clearest voice and First responder.
Holding statement
A short first public statement issued while facts are still emerging. It says what is known, what the organisation is doing, who is affected and when it will update next, without speculating about cause or blaming anyone.
Use Crisis Room with a team
Seats are $59 each. Buy up to 25 seats online and assign them from your company admin; above that, or for a facilitated programme or an institution licence, request a quote and we activate your seats after payment.
Annual crisis rehearsal
Run your real crisis team through a 90 or 120-minute session, then use the debrief to update roles and approval routes.
Leadership programme module
Several teams play the same scenario at once, so the debrief compares different choices on the same injects.
Communications skills workshop
Focus on the written tasks: draft, score, compare the strongest statements, then try the other scenario.
MBA or executive class session
A 60-minute version fits a teaching slot, with the debrief as the basis for the next discussion.
Volume pricing
| Seats | Per seat | How to buy |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | $59 | Online |
| 2 to 10 | $53.10 | Online |
| 11 to 50 | $47.20 | Online up to 25, then quote |
| 51+ | $41.30 | Quote |
Crisis Room compared with a classroom role-play or tabletop exercise
| Compared on | A classroom role-play or tabletop exercise | Crisis Room |
|---|---|---|
| Preparation | Days writing injects and artefacts | Two ready scenarios with ten injects and realistic artefacts each |
| Time pressure | Depends on the facilitator’s watch | Injects released on a clock, with response windows and a cost for silence |
| Consequences | Discussed afterwards | Four live gauges move as each team decides |
| Written work | Rarely done, rarely marked | Statements and notices scored for clarity, accuracy, empathy and accountability |
| Debrief | Notes from memory | A timeline, gauge lines and the best statements, ready at the end |
| Fairness | Each room gets a different session | Every team faces the same injects at the same times |
What to pair with Crisis Room
The Business Continuity and Crisis Plan
Turn what the exercise exposed into a written plan, with scenario runbooks and crisis message templates.
See the kit →Pro KitThe Data Privacy Compliance Starter
After Midnight Leak: a breach severity helper, notices and response letters for real data incidents.
See the kit →Pro KitThe Workplace Safety Programme Kit
After Line 4: build the safety programme, risk matrix and emergency plan that make a fire less likely.
See the kit →AssessAll assessmentBehaviour Under Pressure Assessment (AssessAll)
Shows each crisis team member what changes in how they work when the pressure is on.
Take the assessment →Bodhih TrainingCorporate training and Train the Trainer by Bodhih Training
A facilitated crisis leadership programme around the exercise, or certification for your own facilitators.
Talk to Bodhih Training →Related simulations
How much does Crisis Room cost?
Crisis Room is priced per participant at $59 per seat, with volume tiers by seat count. You can buy up to 25 seats online. For larger groups, request a quote: we invoice, you pay offline and your seats are activated.
Can Bodhih run the session for us?
Yes. Facilitated sessions and programmes are available by quote. You can also run Crisis Room yourself from the facilitator console.
Can an individual buy it?
Crisis Room is a team exercise run by organisations, so it is not sold to individuals. You can register interest for an open cohort, and we will contact you if one is arranged.
How long is a session, and how many people can take part?
Choose 60, 90 or 120 minutes; the injects and windows scale to fit. A session can have up to eight teams, and each team fills the six roles, with people covering more than one role if the team is small.
Which scenarios are available?
Two: Midnight Leak, a customer data exposure at a digital payments company, and Line 4, a factory fire with injuries and a viral video at a food manufacturer. Both companies and every person in them are invented.
How are teams scored?
On decision quality, speed within each response window, written work and the final state of the four gauges. Written work is checked for clarity, accuracy, empathy and accountability, and stating numbers that were not in the facts counts against it.
Is AI involved, and can it make things up?
AI helps mark the written statements while the session’s AI budget lasts; after that, a built-in rubric marks them, so the session never stops. The scenarios, options and gauges are all fixed in advance.
Do participants get a credential?
Yes. Everyone in a full session receives an Open Badges 3.0 credential for the scenario they played, with their role, the team’s score and rank, and any awards, plus a public verification page and an Add to LinkedIn button.
Can we try it before buying seats?
Yes. A sandbox session for up to three people uses no seats, so you can rehearse it with your facilitators. Sandbox sessions do not issue credentials.
Does it plug into our LMS?
Crisis Room runs inside Bodhih Arena: participants sign in to Bodhih and join from their Arena page. It is not launched through LTI today.
Is it different from a classroom tabletop exercise?
Yes. A classroom tabletop depends on the facilitator to time injects and judge outcomes. Crisis Room releases injects on a clock, moves gauges from each team’s choices, scores written work and builds the debrief for you.
Devices, privacy and refunds?
Each person needs a web browser on a laptop or desktop. Session data stays within your organisation’s Bodhih account; see bodhih.org/privacy. Refund terms are at bodhih.org/refunds.
Rehearse the first hour before you need it
Ten injects, six roles and a clock that does not wait. Pick a date for your crisis team, run a sandbox first, and let the debrief show where your plan needs work.
Want a feel for Arena first? Play the free 3-round Price War.
- 2 to 10 seats: 10% off
- 11 to 50 seats: 20% off
- 51+ seats: 30% off
For a company admin or manager. Pay by card, UPI or bank, with a tax invoice.
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