Crisis Staffing: Running the Backroom
How to design, staff, and run the crisis backroom — processing directives, creating updates, and keeping crisis committee moving.
What Is the Crisis Backroom?
In crisis committees, the backroom is the engine that drives the simulation. While delegates debate and pass directives in the front room, a crisis staff in the backroom processes those directives, generates realistic consequences, creates new updates, and responds to personal directives from individual delegates. A good backroom makes delegates feel like their actions have real consequences. A bad backroom either ignores delegate actions or creates absurd updates that break immersion.
The backroom typically consists of a crisis director (CD), an assistant crisis director (ACD), and 2-5 crisis staffers depending on committee size. The CD sets the overall arc of the crisis — where the simulation is going — while staffers handle individual delegate portfolios and write updates.
At top conferences like UChicago MUNUC, Georgetown NAIMUN, or Yale's SCSY, crisis staffers spend weeks preparing a crisis arc with pre-written updates, contingency branches, and detailed portfolio backgrounds. The arc ensures the crisis escalates at a controlled pace regardless of what delegates do.