Stress-test a bereavement caseload spike by proving that each hold window and restore rule can place unanswered counselor requests inside the planned lane, survive override pressure, and avoid trapping bereavement teams inside a green caseload slide that hides long-lived soft holds.
Bereavement caseload spikes often list a counselor checklist while leaving restore behavior, override authority, and abort ownership implicit. Those edges decide whether a late family contact stays inside the bereavement packet or leaves a broken follow-up path live under peak volume. The exercise should follow actual caseload inventories, counselor maps, and escalation paths rather than a clean quality deck.
Map the caseload before the drill
List every bereavement contact class with its response window, waive rule, override behavior, owners, and notification channels. Mark paths that cannot reverse without a manual amendment. Attach the last three bereavement caseload spike incidents with raw timelines and any waivers. Include the source of truth for open contact counts during the observation window.
Define the phases for detect, hold, divert, abort, and restore. Each phase needs an owner and an exit condition. Write the point after which a stuck contact would require a different procedure, then review whether that action is still permitted. Capture maximum acceptable dwell in measurable units, including which contact modalities are excluded from the spike path and why.
Caseload scenarios worth timing
- A minority contact bay keeps a side-channel while the aggregate bereavement dashboard stays green.
- A restore has already left a counselor without a trusted contact state.
- The primary bereavement dashboard lags beyond the planned observation window.
- An operator skips a contact gate because a reporting cutoff is near.
- Automated and human divert messages collide under the new spike rule.
- Abort authority is unclear at week end and the update lands on the wrong amendment.
For each scenario, identify detection time, counselor impact, containment, and the authority to force a bereavement caseload spike rollback. Require commands and dashboard links in the runbook.
Ownership once the caseload window closes
Run the package in Pingpong with hospice ops, bereavement counseling, social work, and quality seats. Ask hospice ops which family decision becomes unsafe first if contacts still stick after the claimed window. Ask counseling whether macros can absorb a forced override. Ask owners to show the exact caseload version or export used as the exit condition.
Related reviews include the hospice ops lead seat, a census cap review, an IDG meeting rewrite, and an after-hours call spike stress test. Browse the war-game decisions hub for adjacent controls.
Authorize the published spike path only after a timed drill restores usable hold hygiene inside the documented budget without an undocumented manual step.