Chose the scenario where decision latency would cost you the most

When this hits, where do you slow down?

• Unclear decision owner
  You lose time debating who has the final call. Then the blast radius grows.

• Legal or comms approval stall
  Drafts multiply. Nothing ships. The narrative forms without you.

• Vendor escalation chaos
  No one knows who to call, what leverage exists, or what “good” looks like.

• Exec side channels
  Leaders start parallel threads. The room splits. Confusion becomes policy.

• Board notification uncertainty
  You hesitate. Or you overshare. Either way, trust takes a hit.

• Inconsistent customer messaging
  Different teams promise different things. Customers feel it immediately.

• Missing facts and shaky assumptions
  You cannot answer “what happened” fast enough to decide cleanly.

Most teams have plans. The real risk is decision latency and handoff failure under pressure.

Pick scenarios that help you expose your weak seams

Then rehearse together with the leaders who will be in the room when it is real & leave with proof artifacts, not just vibes.

Regulator clock starts during a customer-impacting outage

• What happens: A critical system fails. Customers are impacted. A reporting window may be triggered.

• Decisions you will be forced to make: Severity level. Containment posture. Comms cadence and who can approve what.

• Where teams usually stall: Legal wants certainty. Ops wants action. Comms wants guardrails.

Regulated & High-Trust Operators
(auditability, reputation, safety)

Insider misuse with potential sensitive data exposure

Safety-impacting disruption

• What happens: An internal actor is suspected. Facts are incomplete. Emotions run hot.

• Decisions: Investigation boundaries. Access changes. HR and legal posture. External notification triggers.

• Stalls: Fear of blame. Too many voices. Privilege confusion.

• What happens: Operational disruption creates potential patient, citizen, or safety impact.

• Decisions: Service continuity tradeoffs. Public posture. Board thresholds.

• Stalls: Competing clocks between ops, legal, comms, and exec.

Critical SaaS vendor outage

• What happens: A vendor goes down. Your customers blame you.

• Decisions: Escalation path. Customer messaging triggers. SLA posture. Workarounds vs shutdown.

• Stalls: Vendor contacts unknown. Internal comms freelancing. Executive pings everywhere.

Fast-growing, vendor-heavy businesses (fragility, dependencies)

MSP compromise spreads across environments

Third-party data exposure

• What happens: A trusted partner becomes the attack path. Scope is unclear.

• Decisions: Isolation tradeoffs. Third-party containment roles. Customer and board triggers.

• Stalls: Ownership confusion across internal teams and vendors.

• What happens: A partner leaks data. You still own the trust outcome.

• Decisions: Notification posture. Contract levers. Regulator and customer messaging.

• Stalls: Legal-comms loop. Waiting for “perfect facts.”

Board notification thresholds and cadence under scrutiny

• What happens: A real incident or near-miss. The board wants to know “are we in control.”

• Decisions: Who informs whom. What gets time-boxed. What triggers escalation automatically.

• Stalls: “Do we tell them now?” debates. Mixed signals. Overconfidence.

Boards and executive teams with a real risk mandate (proof and governance)

Executive decision rights are unclear during a high-impact call

Comms posture under public attention

• What happens: Leaders agree on risk. They disagree on authority.

• Decisions: Final call owners. Consults vs votes. Time-box rules.

• Stalls: Committees form in real time.

• What happens: Media attention appears fast. The narrative clock starts.

• Decisions: What can be said. Who approves. What cadence is promised.

• Stalls: Conflicting drafts. Approval ambiguity. Executive surprise.

Proof that can be trusted

You leave with:

• Bottlenecks found. Where decisions slow down.

• Changes shipped. Owners, dates, definition of done.

• Trajectory. What improved, what’s next.

You don’t need another “readiness” report. You need proof and confidence that your leaders can decide fast, stay aligned, and communicate clearly under pressure.

Download a consistent, board-ready after-action readout template that proves readiness by capturing what you rehearsed, where decisions slowed, and what changes shipped with owners and dates.

Common questions customers ask

We already do tabletop exercises.

Good. That is a start. Most tabletops test awareness. SageSims tests decisions, conflict, timing, and ownership.

We do training.

Training builds knowledge. Practice builds behavior under pressure.

We do not have time.

You are already spending the time. You are just spending it during the incident when it is most expensive.

We already have an incident response plan.

Nice work! Together with SageSims you can pressure-test whether your decision rights, approvals, and comms posture actually hold up when the clock is running.

This will make us look unprepared.

Practicing is the strongest signal of maturity. No serious team goes live without rehearsal.

This will turn into a blame session, or make people defensive.

We run it as a no-gotchas rehearsal focused on the system, producing clear ownership and a short, actionable fix list.

Ready to improve your decision readiness?

No scrambling. No debate loops. Clear calls, clean handoffs.