By Marcus Vaughan – Cofounder, iluminr
“That Microsimulation gave me goosebumps…”
This weekend we had some fun.
Well, if you consider Microsimulating a room of complete strangers in a severe but plausible event fun, then we had some fun. And I do.
But this one was different.
As 70+ sports, entertainment and equine professionals descended on the Howden Insurance Brokers Australia The Gameplan event in Adelaide, we turned one of our Gameday-ready Microsimulations into a game of Red Light. Green Light.
The scenario sailed close to the winds of reality. Maybe a little too close.
This severe but plausible geo-political event, with cyber warfare spillover, incorporated significant third-party outages and a disinformation campaign. Given the audience, we brought in the concept of major event cancellation.
What made it chilling is how close we are to this reality.
It was a touch wood moment.
Microsimulation Time: 30 minutes
In that time we:
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Risk assessed People, Brand, Operational, and Financial impacts.
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Challenged the decision model to proceed with or cancel a major event (Red Light. Green Light.).
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Considered an alternate communications strategy to combat a deepfake disinformation campaign while locked out of social channels.
You know you’ve hit the mark when the noise in the room from discussion is so loud you can’t clearly hear one team from another.
Now that’s my kind of energy.
So what were the insights?
Big decisions bring big debate.
You may get a split room and when you do, you need a basis to ground your decision making. Values. People. Viability.
There is always a risk-reward trade-off.
Manage the risks as you can, but review the decision model as the context becomes clearer, or changes.
When it does, exercising cognitive flexibility will become critical.
Recognising the past, is the past.
Your experience from prior events will fuel your speed and confidence in decision making, but a change in context can also blindside you.
The operating environment has changed since you last experienced anything like this. Today’s crisis is not yesterday’s crisis.
While we should always learn from every experience, we should not assume that what worked last time will work the same way again.
Diversity of thought and experience brings detail to the table that may change your entire strategy.
Contributor safety is key to harness this.
The devil is in the detail in understanding your contractual acceptance or transfer of risk. Blanket assumptions are expensive assumptions.
Challenging assumptions can re-centre your perspective.
“We’re not red light, nor green light. We’re amber and here’s why….”
Challenging safety allows your team to more effectively discern fact from assumption.
Why It Works
This larger-than-life session again underlined the impact you can make in just 30 minutes to build risk awareness, crisis capability, and engagement in resilience.
But experience shows us that a standalone simulation will only take you so far.
A Microsimulation builds capability.
A regular cadence builds muscle memory.
Centralising your data collection from each Microsimulation builds intelligence.
Keep it immersive, keep it engaging. But keep it micro.
Then repeat, repeat, repeat.
Special thanks to Ben Hand and the team at Howden Insurance Brokers Australia for hosting us at a truly unforgettable event.
Want to run a Gameday simulation like this for your team?
iluminr’s Microsimulations helps organizations strengthen decision-making, test crisis communication strategies, and scale response capabilities across teams from execs to the frontline.
