Pandemic for General Business

Pandemic Tabletop Exercise for General Business

This exercise is part of our catalog of tabletop exercises for general business.

Scenario Overview

Participants are the management team of a fictional organization as media reports describe the growing impact of an influenza outbreak. Staff availability begins to drop rapidly due to illness, the need to care for sick family members, and growing concern about exposure. At the same time, the organization must continue serving customers while conditions worsen.

As the outbreak intensifies, the loss of staff affects chain-of-command, day-to-day operations, and the organization’s ability to maintain normal service levels. Conditions become even more difficult as fatalities occur, including the loss of a senior member of staff, forcing leadership to manage continuity, communications, and operational resilience under sustained pressure.

This exercise challenges business leaders to evaluate how well prepared they are for a prolonged workforce disruption and how they would continue operating while staffing levels decline and uncertainty continues to grow.

Why This Scenario Matters for General Business

Businesses depend on people, leadership continuity, customer service, and reliable operations to remain effective. A pandemic can affect far more than attendance. It can disrupt staffing, management structure, service delivery, and the organization’s ability to maintain normal operations over an extended period.

This exercise helps leadership teams evaluate how they would respond when staff availability declines steadily, communications become more difficult, and customers still depend on the organization for continuity, clarity, and support during a prolonged public health event.

Exercise Objectives

  • Evaluate leadership decision-making during a prolonged workforce disruption.
  • Discuss continuity of operations when staffing levels fall below normal thresholds.
  • Review chain-of-command and succession planning during a sustained incident.
  • Assess internal and external communications during a worsening public health event.
  • Identify priorities for maintaining essential business services under reduced staffing.
  • Strengthen preparedness for extended operational disruption affecting staff and customers.

Typical Participants

  • Executive leadership
  • Operations management
  • Human resources
  • Communications or public affairs staff
  • Customer service leadership
  • Department managers
  • Business continuity or crisis management team members

Exercise Format

Conduct-It-Yourself Tabletop Exercises are structured, discussion-based simulations designed to help organizations test their response to disruptive events without the time and cost of a fully facilitated exercise. Participants are placed in the middle of a realistic scenario as it unfolds and must work through decisions, priorities, and consequences as a leadership team.

Each downloadable exercise package includes everything needed to conduct the session internally, including facilitator instructions, exercise overview materials, participant forms, a detailed scenario script, and a ready-to-run PowerPoint presentation that guides the scenario and discussion. The materials are designed so organizations can conduct the exercise as delivered or customize the storyline and supporting materials to reflect their own operations, workforce structure, and continuity planning objectives.

Most exercises are designed to be conducted in approximately 2 to 4 hours. A typical agenda includes an exercise overview and scenario briefing, the facilitated disaster simulation discussion, group review and preparation for debriefing, and a structured post-exercise discussion to capture lessons learned and improvement opportunities.

Exercise Focus

  • Preparedness
  • Crisis Communications
  • Business Resumption

Related Tabletop Exercise Scenarios

Organizations exploring this scenario may also find these exercises useful:

Looking for a Facilitated Exercise for Your Business?

Many organizations choose to run their exercises with an experienced facilitator to guide discussion, introduce evolving scenario developments, and capture improvement opportunities.

If you would prefer a professionally facilitated tabletop exercise tailored to your business, learn more about our consulting services.

Explore Facilitated Tabletop Exercises for General Business

Purchase & Download

This exercise is delivered as a downloadable package that includes facilitator instructions, scenario materials, and structured discussion prompts to guide the exercise.

SKU CIYGB013
$595.00