That is one of the reasons why we introduced a “tabletop” exercise into our Super Bowl planning. It wasn’t until later that we realized we could also use it to pressure-test and validate our “hows.” A tabletop exercise is essentially an operational rehearsal. We brought onboard a third-party facilitator about a month before the Super Bowl to review all of our plans that, by that point, had taken three years to create.
It’s human nature to resist changing things after investing so much time and effort. I’m sure that’s why many of our staff and contractors thought stadium security expert Dan Donovan was a pain in the ass. They had to press the pause button on the important work they were doing to provide him with time, documents, and answers to probing questions. What the staff perceived as a series of unproductive meetings, however, helped Dan understand the design of our plans, schedules, processes, and procedures, as well as our contingencies, our level of preparedness, and blind spots in our thinking.
About 10 days prior to the Super Bowl, Dan gathered everyone who would be located at NFL Control and most of the people in charge of various aspects of game day. Over the course of four hours, Dan would run through five or six crafted scenarios, all of which involved things that might not go well at the Super Bowl. He would set the scene in great detail and throw in something truly awful.
Ford Field—home of the Detroit Lions and the host of Super Bowl XL, held on February 5, 2006—is snuggled into a cozy corner at the intersection of two interstate highways. A few modest strips of parking and a garage are shoe-horned into the spaces between the stadium and the highways. The main entrance is directly across the street from Comerica Park, home of baseball’s Detroit Tigers. For most fans, there is one side from which to exit the building. At the end of the game, 65,000 ticket holders would flood out of the main doors, hang an immediate left, and head for Gratiot Avenue, where more than 100 buses waited to return about 5,000 fans to their downtown hotels. That was the plan, anyway.
“It’s the fourth quarter and there’s four minutes left on the game clock,” Dan began. “The score is 28–7. A fatal shooting has been reported on Brush Street, the main pedestrian access, just beyond the security gate, short of Gratiot Avenue. The police don’t know who he was, why he was there, what happened to him, or where the assailant has gone. They have cordoned off access from the area to preserve the crime scene and protect the public from further danger.”
Given the scenario and lopsided score, fans may have already been heading for the doors to beat the end-of-game rush. Commanders of the Detroit Police Department (DPD), who participated in our tabletop exercise, informed us that they were sealing off the security perimeter and closing the gates. Matters of public safety are always the jurisdiction of law enforcement. The Super Bowl security team, informed by DPD of the closure, began deploying guards to the stadium doors to keep fans from exiting the building. In the meantime, we wrote a scripted message for the public address announcer to inform the fans that they should remain in the stadium, and ideally in their seats, at the end of the game due to “a police investigation outside the stadium.” The announcement would be made at the first whistle stoppage in play. It was likely to create tremendous concern in the audience, but it was better to keep as many fans as possible in their seats than to have tens of thousands of them in the concourse trying to get out. It would be much easier to keep them informed while they were inside the seating areas. The tense fans would need to be kept informed during the closing minutes of the game to avoid the panic that might ensue in a vacuum of information.
Although Blackberry texting devices had already been in use by 2006, Twitter would not roll out until a month after the game, Facebook was just a baby, and iPhones had not yet been introduced. We were prepared for this tectonic shift in news gathering and dissemination by the time the lights went out in the New Orleans Superdome in 2013 at Super Bowl XLVII. If we had done the same exercise today, the complexities of managing messages and combating rumors swirling on social media would have been an important part of our contingency planning.
Because the announcement would likely rattle the teams and the players, the football operations group would pick up the phones on the sidelines to let the coaches know that the game should continue and that we would keep them informed as well. After the game was over, they would be told to stay in their locker rooms.
The broadcasting network, as well as other television stations, would likely start covering the incident as a news event, so the media relations department would keep the 3,000 media inside informed and connected with the police department, who would be tasked with providing authoritative facts. Our operations team discussed how we would approach the postgame period. We would repeat the message to the fans at least twice more before the end of the game and provide verified information periodically. The championship team would receive their trophy while the losing team would go to their locker room. But their buses could not leave until they were cleared by the police.
“There’s now a minute remaining on the clock,” Dan interjected. “The police have determined that the victim had actually been a criminal that threatened passersby with a knife and was “neutralized” by law enforcement. The police have determined there is no danger to letting fans leave the stadium, but that the route to the buses is sealed off as a crime scene.” The scenario had changed. We could now announce that fans would be able to safely leave the stadium, but how were we now going to keep 5,000 people who were looking for their buses from walking into the crime scene barricades like the parade band marching into the blind alley in Animal House? We determined there was no good way to get people to the buses, and we had no contingency for a back-up bus pick-up area if the primary location was inaccessible. It would be a good idea to have one. Good work, Dan.
In a later year’s exercise, Dan posed this scenario: “It is less than an hour before the game. Most of the fans have passed through security and are watching player warm-ups or enjoying refreshments at one of the stadium clubs. A tanker truck on the adjacent highway jackknifes and its cargo of ammonia appears to be leaking. The toxic gas may be drifting toward the stadium.” Before we set our sights on how we would react, I asked our security-and-law enforcement team whether there was a HAZMAT ban on the closest highways on Super Bowl Sunday. There was not then, but by game time there was. The exercise strengthened our plan by greatly reducing the probability of that issue.
Dan and I felt that one really important part of the plan had to involve an interruption of the “chain of command.” That is, what if one or more of the key decision makers tasked with managing the response was suddenly inaccessible or unable to perform. So, for one exercise, he took me out of the equation. I honestly don’t remember the scenario that needed solving, except that while setting up the details, Dan added that I had slumped to the floor unresponsive. The team worked together to identify the problem, isolate the issue, and set in motion a rational, actionable response. I was proud of them, but disappointed that no one thought to call an EMT to try to revive me. I hope that was unintentional.
Notwithstanding their intrusion into our business or school days, no one questions the importance of a fire drill, a rehearsal of an essential emergency response plan. A tabletop exercise simulating the rollout of your product launch, opening day, rebranding, or crisis plan is nothing less than a rehearsal of your operational response to potential threats. It is challenging to solve tough problems in a simulated environment, but I assure you it is much easier to do that than to try to solve them in a real-life, heat-of-the-moment atmosphere, when time is your enemy and every moment is precious. A tabletop exercise can acid test your plan, expose gaps, and if you act on the results, reduce the probability of things going wrong when it counts most. Over the course of nine years, we incorporated many tabletop learnings into our contingency-planning strategies. As important, it helped to guide better decision making when things really did go off the rails in the real world.
PREPARING FOR ANYTHING, NO
T EVERYTHING
We didn’t know it when we first started this annual practice, but we discovered that our tabletop exercise helped us do far more than just explore how we would deal with specific issues. It established a team-oriented, problem-solving culture in which the collective group thought through solutions collaboratively in a time-constrained environment. Because the Super Bowl moved to a different city and stadium each year, there were always important new teammates joining the decision making structure, including the stadium’s management, local law enforcement, and recent hires. Conducting a dry run to give everyone an opportunity to become more familiar with those they would be working beside on a very busy, very long game day was an enormously valuable benefit. Every member of the group came away with a better understanding of who would assume responsibility over which elements of the response to something going wrong.
When you feel swamped with contingency scenarios, remember that you simply can’t anticipate every potential problem. You should plan for the most likely and predictable, but some things are neither likely nor predictable. So, your plan and decision making structure must ensure that you are ready not for everything, but for anything.
In the nine years that we staged these tabletop exercises, we never responded to a scenario involving a power failure. But, when the power did fail at the New Orleans Superdome, our senior team quickly swung into action as though we were faced with another tabletop exercise. Many who were at NFL Control that night agree that the tabletop simulation contributed significantly to our calm, collaborative, and systematic approach to managing that crisis.
When have you finished contingency planning? Never. It’s a continuous, iterative process. After you’ve identified potential threats and problems, develop a strategy to avoid them or mitigate their effects, and plan how you will implement those strategies. You will constantly refine the plan based on new information, new realities, and new insights (like the results of tabletop exercises). You may need to circulate your contingency plans to others for review or elevate them for approval. And while you do that, without question, you will discover additional threats and problems that need an entirely new set of contingency plans. But “planning for anything” can help you respond to something going wrong—after you have run out of time or resources—in order to develop more contingencies and a variety of strategies that can provide applicable options for responding to the unexpected.
9
COMMUNICATE OR DIE
The first NHL All-Star Faceoff, a celebrity ice hockey match held before the 1996 NHL All-Star Game in Boston, was taped for an MTV special. Television personalities of the time like Matthew Perry, Michael J. Fox, Jason Priestley, Dave Coulier, Richard Dean Anderson, Jerry Houser, and Alan Thicke jumped at the chance to rub shoulders with NHL stars beneath the stands and take to the same ice. We believed that anything that exposed the sport to young American entertainment seekers could help to generate a new crop of fans for the “Great Frozen Game.” Whether we actually achieved that, I can’t say, but we felt that positioning popular stars as fans of the game was a strategy worth pursuing to promote the sport.
Both MTV and the NHL gave it another try the following year, 1997, in San Jose, California. The celebrity team would play two abbreviated periods with MTV’s cameras rolling. The game proceeded as planned, with camera crews capturing as much spontaneous verbal sparring from the team benches as play on the ice. As the exhibition neared its end, two Zamboni ice resurfacing machines waited in the tunnel for the players to finish so we could quickly prepare a fresh sheet for the NHL stars to take their warmup skate. Everything was designed to precisely fit the available time before the puck dropped on Fox’s coverage of the NHL All-Star Game. All we needed to make it work was perfection.
Perfection eluded us very early. The celebrities didn’t skate to their locker room when the game ended. MTV’s host kept some of the most popular stars on the ice to capture interviews and inaneness. While time slipped away, I realized I had no way to communicate in real time with the MTV camera crew and no way to communicate with anyone who could communicate with them.
The Zambonis moved onto the ice and idled in the far corners for seven interminable minutes until the crew and players finally moved off, finally enabling the machines to begin smoothing the ice. We struggled to make up the time, canceling video features and other pregame entertainment. I turned to Todd, the TV commercial coordinator standing beside me at the timekeeper’s bench sandwiched between the penalty boxes and warned him:
“We are going to be late.”
“How late?”
“I don’t know yet. Right now, it’s seven minutes, but I’m working on getting it down to about three or four by the time we start the game.”
About 45 minutes later, when the cameras started broadcasting live, we were less than two minutes behind schedule, which admittedly isn’t a long time unless, of course, all 120 seconds go horribly wrong. Which they did. Instead of the host’s “Welcome to the 47th NHL All-Star Game coming live from San Jose Arena,” the TV audience joined the show during a patriotic non sequitur starting with the last half of The Star-Spangled Banner. Because the TV commercial coordinator beside me failed to let the producer in the TV truck know about the delay, the Fox production team was as surprised as the viewers. Rather than disrespectfully talking over the national anthem, they were forced to just let it play, starting the show without a welcome or an explanation from the middle of the song.
The root cause when something goes wrong can be a flawed plan or an entirely unforeseen phenomenon, but very often incrementally more damage can result from a lack of communication or miscommunication. In our case, poor communication was the root cause of both the problem and our inability to manage it to a better result.
First, we had no way to communicate with the MTV camera crew. Second, we had no staff member responsible for supervising their time on the ice, and no one who could skate out to interrupt them. We chose not to force them off the ice, which we could have done by signaling the Zamboni drivers to start their resurfacing laps. Flattened celebrity hockey players might have been an even worse outcome.
A FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE
We learned the hard way that things are most likely to go wrong when we do not or cannot communicate effectively. When events are in progress, our team typically communicates with walkie-talkie radios, various types of intercom systems, and, when all else fails, with phones and texts. We neglected to consider how we would communicate with a third party, MTV, upon whom we were dependent to stay on time. Had we been able to reach the camera crew directly or through an intermediary, the original seven-minute delay would have been far shorter, we would likely have been able to get back on schedule, and the broadcaster would have avoided airing half of the national anthem.
A focus on establishing a comprehensive, unhindered, and free-flowing system of communication before, during, and after a project is key to managing problems, regardless of the industry, company, or organization. Having quick access to the important internal and external stakeholders, problem solvers, and decision makers is essential. When time is of the essence, you can’t waste any of it not instantly knowing how to get to the people most qualified to help fix a problem, provide guidance, authorize direction, or respond to the aftermath.
KNOWING WITH WHOM TO COMMUNICATE
The most basic tool to encourage and accelerate the movement of information is a contact list that provides the phone numbers and e-mail addresses of everyone working on the project. Do you think that’s obvious? You would be surprised how many projects I encounter that don’t publish one. You may be less surprised to find out that we had a contact list for the NHL All-Star Game, but that no one from MTV was on it. MTV people should have been on the contact list, but they were overlooked because they were a third party. That turned out to be a disastrous omission. It doesn’t matter whose business card one carries. If they have a role on the project, include them, even if they are an outside resour
ce.
An alphabetical directory of names may be convenient for smaller projects or for teams in which everyone knows one another. For larger projects and teams, however, a simple roster may not be enough. Although we as project leaders should know everyone’s roles and responsibilities, many of our teammates may not be as intimately familiar or knowledgeable. If that’s the case, consider adding job functions for each participant on the list, organizing the directory by department or responsibility, or adding a “who to call” for various kinds of help or to share important information.
The Super Bowl contact list, containing hundreds of names, was so complex that we circulated a booklet that included an alphabetical listing and a list by function to make it as user-friendly as possible. In later years, we also added a hotline with a knowledgeable “dispatcher,” someone who could receive information from anyone and then immediately disseminate it to the most appropriate members of the team. We published the pocket-sized booklet in printed form so teammates could keep a copy with them at all times, and also because sending it as an e-mail would be of little use if, say, the reason they had to contact someone was because their computer or smartphone was not working properly or our servers were down.
KNOWING HOW WE WILL COMMUNICATE
As important as it is to make it fast and easy to identify and reach the right person with whom to share information, it is equally essential to have a system in place to reach an entire group of people who may need to receive the information. Our primary pathway to communicate might be our mobile phones, texts, e-mails, or walkie-talkies. However, it is also essential to develop a backup plan in the event real-time communication is interrupted. As illustrated at the beginning of this chapter, a failure to communicate to those who may be affected by something that has gone wrong can cause more, and more serious, failures to follow.
What to Do When Things Go Wrong Page 10
