Continuity Ops Guide
How to play
Continuity Ops is a small strategy game about proving readiness before pressure exposes the weak spots.
🎯 Objective
Survive ten weeks with Mission and Trust above 50. If Mission reaches 0, the organization fails contact with reality.
🔁 Turn Loop
- Pick one operational domain on the board.
- Spend up to three weekly actions improving readiness.
- Press End Week to trigger an incident.
- The incident hits one domain. Your preparation absorbs damage.
- Repeat until week 10 or organizational failure.
🧩 Domains
Customer Operations
Revenue, service desk, orders, and public-facing commitments.
Core Systems
Identity, line-of-business apps, integrations, backups, and restoration order.
People & Authority
Decision rights, cross-training, escalation, and role coverage.
Vendors & Supply
Outside dependencies, service levels, alternates, and brittle handoffs.
Records & Knowledge
Documentation, runbooks, data quality, and recoverable memory.
Communications
Internal updates, external messaging, stakeholder timing, and rumor control.
🛠️ Actions
Map Function
Clarifies what matters first. Good against customer and priority confusion.
Document
Turns tribal knowledge into recoverable operating memory.
Train Team
Reduces single-person dependency and authority confusion.
Harden System
Costs more budget, but absorbs heavier technical incidents.
Secure Vendor
Builds fallback paths for supplier and outside-service disruptions.
Prep Comms
Protects trust when the situation is unclear or public-facing.
Run Exercise
Costs more budget, but proves whether the plan can execute under pressure.
📊 Scores
- Mission: operational survival. Incidents reduce this when readiness is weak.
- Trust: confidence from leadership, staff, and stakeholders.
- Budget: resource pool for actions. Some actions cost more than others.
- Continuity: average readiness across all domains.
- Stress: domain pressure. High stress makes future incidents worse.
💡 Practical Tips
Do not max one lane only
A beautiful systems plan still fails if people, vendors, records, or comms are brittle.
Exercise before late game
Exercises are expensive, but they convert confidence into evidence.
Watch stress
A stressed domain can turn a manageable incident into a bad week.
Budget is a constraint
Hardening and exercises are powerful, but overspending leaves fewer options later.