5M Leadership
Four executives argue at a boardroom table. In front of them is a console with a green LAUNCH button and a red PAUSE button, and a red clock on the wall reads 00:59.

The Corporate Simulator · Signals and Risk

Ten Minutes to Launch

A warning leaves the test lab. By the time it reaches the chief executive, the words have changed. You have ten minutes and one Signal Note. Then you must press LAUNCH or PAUSE.

  1. Brief
  2. Act one
  3. Act two
  4. Outcome
  5. Route
  6. Round two
  7. Close

Briefing

AB Hailogix goes live in ten minutes

  • AB Hailogix is a payments technology company. Its new product is worth AfK.50 million.
  • The campaign is running. The chief executive has announced the date to the market.
  • An hour ago, Kofi, a test engineer, wrote a warning. You will watch it move up the reporting line, one person at a time.
  • You hold one Signal Note. It can send a message to a senior person outside the line.
  • When the clock reaches zero, the product launches, unless someone presses PAUSE.

Workshop version

The workshop version is for a facilitator and a group of six to forty people in four teams, on one big screen. It takes about forty minutes. I give each client an access code.

I have an access code

Act one · The message relay

Watch the warning move up the line

Each person reads the message and passes it on. Watch the words. Your Signal Note sends the message, exactly as it reads at that moment, to Nadia, the CFO.

Message as it stands

    Signal Note · 1 left

    A channel outside the reporting line. It sends the message on screen now to Nadia, the CFO, and every note gets a reply.

    Act two · The launch console

    Ten minutes to launch

    Esi, the chief executive, has called four people to the console. Evidence cards will appear as the clock runs. Read each card and listen to the four voices.

    Both buttons stay locked until the decision has an owner. If the clock reaches zero, the product launches by default.

    What happened next

      Cost to AB Hailogix

      Signal score
      / 100

      Why you got this result

      The Signal Route Map

      Rate the route the warning took

      Here is Kofi's warning at each step of the reporting line. Read it from left to right, then give the route a colour.

      Signal Route Map wording from my book Stitch In Time.

      Round two · Same product, same fault

      Play it again with an Early Warning Room

      "a fixed time, a fixed set of people, and a fixed discipline: bring small anomalies before they require large responses."The Early Warning Room, Stitch In Time

      Who sits in it

      How often it meets
      What it may pause without asking anyone

      Round two · Replay

      Twenty-three days before launch

      Days to launch

      Each column is one day. Blue dots mark the days your Early Warning Room meets.

        Side by side

        The same warning, two routes

        "How much does it cost us when truth travels last?"The CFO's question, Stitch In Time
        "Organisations do not get the truth they need. They get the truth their pathways can carry."Stitch In Time

        For your own board

        Ask: "How much does it cost us when truth travels last?" Then test one line from the board scan: "Our signal channels have endpoints with the authority to act".

        Try another simulation Workshop version (access code) Read the book
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