What is a Game Day?
Game day, told as a story about picking a day and practicing a pretend breakdown together.
When the real thing hits, everyone fumbles like it's their first time.Even with the pager in hand, it's not clear who to call.
If you've never practiced, doing it for the first time during a real incident is too slow.20 minutes just to reach someone, another 10 deciding who's in charge.
Pick a day and practice together, just like the real thing.The pager rings for real, and someone is named commander.
Mark the drill day on the calendar and practice together while guests don't even notice.Guests don't need to know it's a drill at all.
Too often exhausts everyone, too rarely loses the effect.Finding the right rhythm matters.
Game day = a scheduled day when the whole team practices a pretend breakdown, as realistically as possible, and afterward records what was slow.
A drill that triggers a simulated incident under a planned scenario and rehearses the real response procedures — paging, command, communication — exactly as they'd happen. It can be seen as chaos engineering done on a regular schedule, as a whole team. Too frequent and fatigue builds up; too rare and skills fade, so getting the cadence right matters.
When grown-ups say it
- Game day
- A scheduled drill the whole team does together. Just like the real thing, but with no real damage.
- Disaster-recovery drill
- Another name for the fake fire-drill day. Practiced on a set day with a set scenario. → the people who keep the park open
- Scenario design
- Deciding in advance what's pretending to break. Too easy teaches nothing; too hard and someone gets hurt.
- Role rehearsal
- Trying on the commander, mechanic, and operator roles ahead of time. So no one's confused about who does what in a real incident.
- Relation to chaos engineering
- The fake breakdown itself. A game day is doing this on a regular schedule, together. → the fake breakdowns caused on purpose
- Recording the lessons
- Writing down afterward what was slow. The next drill gets better because of it.
- Measuring recovery time
- Timing how long the drill took. You need the number to know if you've improved.
- Runbook check
- Checking during the drill whether the mechanic's notebook is still accurate. Update the notebook every time you drill.