Facilitator guide — The Urgent Wire Escalation

Who should be in the room: anyone who can move money or change where it goes. That includes accounts payable, bookkeeping, office managers, executive assistants, and the people who approve them. Three to ten people around one shared screen works best.

Before the session (5 minutes)

Make it yours. Sign in to your ShiftPoint account and open Game settings. Enter the person who approves payment changes, a senior leader scammers might impersonate, your approval limit and your callback rule in your policy's own words. (Using an older setup link instead? Open it and choose Set it up for your company.)
Grab your player link. It's on your account page. Open it on the screen everyone will watch.
Turn on Team session mode on the start screen. The game will pause at key moments for discussion. Then pick how you play: Around one screen, or Split the clues, where the vendor records and the payment policy go to two teammates' phones (they scan a code from the screen) and the Driver has to ask them for facts and phone numbers.
Type everyone's first names in the Who's playing? box, Driver first. The game deals the roles in that order, shows each person's job on the screen, and greets people by name during the pauses. Nobody's name leaves the screen unless they choose to send their result.
Don't pick the case. Just press Clock in, which picks a situation at random. If you already know the answer, you'll steer the room without meaning to.

Roles (the game deals them; rotate every round)

DriverTaps the screen. Doesn't tap until at least two people have spoken.

SkepticQuestions every request, including ones from the boss. That's the job, not rudeness.

Policy keeperReads the relevant policy out loud before any money moves.

Clock-watcherCalls out the time left before every action, so the room feels the deadline without being ruled by it.

Board readerReads the case board (the clues found so far) out loud before any money moves.

With three people, the game uses the first three roles; with four, the first four; and so on. Bigger groups get "Teammate": say what you'd do before the Driver taps. After the debrief, press Swap roles, next situation: everyone moves one role down and the game deals a new situation, so the quiet person gets a turn as the Skeptic.

Playing Split the clues? The Policy keeper also holds the company phone book, and one more person becomes the Records keeper (with only three people, skip the Skeptic). The Records keeper looks up vendors and reads out a check code that puts each record on the Driver's board. Nobody hands over their phone: everything has to be said out loud.

Why roles matter: these scams work because people feel awkward questioning a boss or slowing down an "urgent" request. Making doubt somebody's assigned job makes it socially safe for everyone.

The 30 minutes

Time	What happens
0–3 min Set the scene	Say one sentence: "Today we practice the moment someone asks us to move money in a hurry." Assign roles. Read the start screen together.
3–20 min Play	The Driver plays while the room talks. The game pauses four times: roles, first look, before anyone pays, and after the manager's decision. Give each pause about a minute. The clock in the game only moves when you act, so talking costs nothing.
20–21 min Predict	When you end the shift, the game asks what was really going on. Take a quick show of hands before anyone taps. Committing to a guess makes the reveal stick.
21–27 min Debrief	Use the Team discussion questions on the debrief screen. Then ask: "What in our real process would have caught this, and where would it have slipped through?"
27–30 min Commit	Print or copy the rule card. Agree on one change to your real process if the session showed a gap, such as a callback rule, an approval limit, or a rule for phone and voice requests.

Facilitator moves that work

Don't reveal anything. If the room is about to pay, ask, "What would change your mind?" instead of warning them.
Expect things to come at the room. People in the story react to what your team does: a phone may ring, a boss may push, a story may change. Let the room decide whether to answer or reply. If they're unsure, ask one question: "Who started this conversation, us or them?"
Make checking normal, not suspicious. One case is a real, legitimate request. When a team verifies and then pays it on time, celebrate that too. The habit you're building is "verifying is how we say yes safely," not "say no to everything."
Talk about decisions, not people. Say "what made that feel urgent?" rather than "why did you click that?" People learn more when they aren't defending themselves.
Name the pressure tactics when they show up: urgency, secrecy, authority, "I'm unreachable," and "use this number instead."

The five cases (facilitator eyes only)

Case	What's really going on	The key move
A	A real vendor's email account is hacked. The invoice is real, but the new bank details are fake.	Call the vendor at the number already on file, then pay the real invoice to the old account.
B	A senior leader is impersonated from a lookalike email address, for a vendor that doesn't exist.	Check the sender's address letter by letter, then reach the leader through a channel you already trust.
C	The bank change is legitimate.	Verify on the number on file, get the second approval, and pay on time. Refusing has a cost too.
D	An AI voice clone of a senior leader calls from an unknown number.	Hang up and call back on the directory number. Never call back the number that called you.
E	A request to change an employee's direct deposit arrives just before payroll, from a personal email address.	Confirm with the employee using the contact details already in their employee file, and pay to the account on file until it's confirmed.

Make it a competition (team challenge)

Have several groups compete on the same situation. It works for a staff meeting, a client event, or a lunch-and-learn.

In Set it up for your company, set Who plays which situation? to Team challenge and copy the link. Every team that opens it gets the same situation, and nobody is told which one.
Split into teams of 2 to 4, each on its own laptop. Turn on Team session mode if you want the discussion pauses.
When a team finishes, it reads you the result code from its debrief screen.
Want a record for your files? Add each person's or team's code to the manager report. You can export it as a spreadsheet or PDF.
Open the team scoreboard on the big screen, enter each team's name and code, tick Hide scores until the reveal, and then press Reveal the winner.
After the reveal, scroll to Compare the tables' choices. It lines up each team's habits side by side and points to the one most teams skipped: "Only 1 of 4 tables did this… Start the discussion there." That's your debrief question.

Scoring rewards doing it right, not doing it fast. The outcome counts most, then money kept safe, then good moves like verifying on a trusted line and reporting to IT. Speed only earns bonus points after a strong finish. The scoreboard saves and sends nothing.

A 5-minute warm-up for the front desk

The gift card text is a free 5-minute case for whoever sits at the front desk: a text that looks like it's from the boss asks for gift cards before lunch ends. It uses the same company and manager names as your link and gives a result code that the scoreboard and Compare view accept, so tables can compete on it too.

On the TV, with the whole room:

Open the gift card link on the TV and type the room's first names in the name box. Pick one Driver to hold the mouse or phone.
The room calls every tap out loud: "open the texts", "check that number", "call him back". The Driver only taps what someone said.
Pause once, right when he first asks for the cards, and ask the room: "What would make you sure it's really him?" Then let them play it out.

Two or more tables? Each table plays on its own phone or laptop at the same time, then reads you its result code for the scoreboard. Playing again from the end screen switches the trick (the office manager is impersonated instead of the boss), so a second round still teaches something.

30 minutes with the warm-up

Time	What happens
0–6 min Warm-up	The gift card text on the TV, as above. One pause question. Don't debrief yet; just ask "who'd have fallen for it on a busy day?"
6–20 min Play	Start the full game in Team session mode with roles dealt by name. Keep each discussion pause to 30–45 seconds.
20–21 min Predict	Show of hands before the reveal.
21–27 min Debrief both	One question for both games: "In both, what made it feel urgent, and what was the one call that would have settled it?"
27–30 min Commit	One change to your real process, such as "we never buy gift cards on a text request" or a callback rule for bank changes.

Retests (is it sticking?)

Ask people to come back in 30 to 90 days and choose Played before? Take a retest on the start screen. They type their old result code (or all of them, if they've played more than once, so they get a situation they haven't seen) and get a different situation of the same difficulty, so nobody can just remember the answer. Their debrief shows a "Since last time" comparison, and the manager report labels each person's change as matched difficulty, harder or easier.

For IT providers and advisers

Put your own name on it: fill in Presented by in the setup form. Your name then appears on the start screen, in the header, on the debrief and on the Practice Record. Want your logo too? Send ShiftPoint your logo and we'll give you a short logo code to type in the Partner logo code box. Your logo then shows next to your name in the full game, the Practice Record and both 5-minute games. From the same setup panel, open the one-page sheet, which carries your name too, and send it to clients or print it for a meeting.

Keep it going

Run the 5-minute gift card text as a warm-up at a staff meeting, then a full session the next month.
Run a different case each month or quarter. Short, repeated practice beats one long annual session.
Keep the rule cards where payments actually get approved.
Rotate roles so everyone takes a turn as the Skeptic.

Privacy and scope: The game runs in the browser and doesn't collect anything unless a player chooses to send their name and result code to your company's report. It never collects their answers. The downloadable debrief is a practice record. It is not verified training, attendance or compliance evidence. Your organization decides its own training requirements and records.

Questions, or want a pilot for your team or clients? Contact ShiftPoint Crisis Labs.