Can you lead through uncertainty?
An in-person crisis management simulation using megagame methods to test leadership, negotiation and decision-making under pressure.
About the Pilot
Fog of War is a live crisis-management simulation designed to explore how people make decisions when information is incomplete, pressure is rising and the consequences are uncertain.
Participants work in teams, negotiate with other groups, respond to changing events and attempt to steer a complex situation towards a successful outcome. The experience is serious in purpose, but engaging in form: a practical, memorable way to test judgement, leadership and collaboration.
Why Join?
Fog of War is designed for people who want to understand how judgement, communication and leadership behave when the situation is unclear and the pressure is real. The pilot offers a practical, memorable way to experience uncertainty from the inside: interpreting incomplete information, negotiating with others, making decisions under time pressure and seeing how teams respond when plans collide with reality.
- Designed as a serious game that is seriously engaging.
- Build resilience under pressure.
- Practise strategic decision-making.
- Lead with confidence through uncertainty.
- Experience how teams respond when plans collide with reality.
What You’ll Experience
Participants are placed inside a developing crisis and asked to act before the full picture is clear. You will need to interpret partial information, negotiate with other groups, manage competing priorities and make decisions in real time. The purpose is not simply to “win”, but to explore how people think, communicate and lead when certainty is unavailable.
The simulation uses megagame methods: live interaction, role-based teams, evolving information, facilitated turns and a structured debrief. It is serious in purpose, but active, social and memorable in form.
Who It’s For
The pilot is suitable for leaders, managers, educators, researchers, students, policy professionals and anyone interested in decision-making under uncertainty. It will be especially relevant to people working in leadership development, management education, public policy, emergency planning, strategy, organisational learning, diplomacy, conflict, security, resilience and negotiation.
- Business and management educators
- Leadership and organisational development professionals
- Policy, resilience and emergency-planning practitioners
- Students and researchers interested in simulation-based learning
- Anyone curious about megagames, negotiation and crisis decision-making
About Fog of War
Fog of War explores the use of analogue games, megagames and live simulations as tools for leadership development, education and research.
Our working thesis is that serious games can create forms of experiential learning that are difficult to reproduce through conventional teaching alone. They allow participants to feel the pressure of uncertainty, practise collaboration and develop insight into their own decision-making habits.
This pilot is part of a wider research and development process. We are interested not only in whether participants enjoy the experience, but in what they learn from it, how they reflect on their decisions and how this kind of simulation might be developed for management education, public policy, resilience training and organisational learning.
Event Details
Pilot Information
Fog of War is being developed as a pilot event to test the use of megagame methods for leadership, management education and decision-making under uncertainty.
The event will place participants inside a developing crisis where they must interpret incomplete information, negotiate with other teams and make decisions before the full picture is clear.
Date: Friday 22 May 2026
Venue: Alliance Manchester Business School
Format: In-person crisis-management simulation
Theme: Alien contact, global uncertainty and high-stakes decision-making
Register for the Pilot
Places are limited for this first Fog of War pilot. Register through Eventbrite to reserve your place, or contact us if you would like to discuss participation, collaboration or future events.