War-game an internal memo before employees, managers, and eventually the outside world treat a soft draft as the official story.
Internal memos fail when the decision is fuzzy, when managers get a different story than the all-hands version, when numbers are rounded into optimism, and when the email reads fine until it is screenshotted into a social thread. A polished paragraph is not evidence that the message survives a careful read from the people who will live with it.
Freeze the message
State the decision, the effective date, who is affected, what does not change, and the single ask of the reader. Attach the exhibits behind any numbers, the FAQ for managers, and the external statement if one will follow. If the memo mixes a reorg, a freeze, and a product cut, split them. One move under fire at a time.
Write the decision you will make if the war game finds nothing new, and the delay criteria if a material contradiction or missing exhibit appears.
Seats that matter
- Front-line employee. What feels unclear, unfair, or incomplete on first read.
- People manager. Questions they cannot answer without inventing policy.
- Skeptic. The claim that looks strongest and is least sourced.
- Leak and press. The sentence that travels worst outside the company.
- Customer-facing. What sales and support will be asked the same day.
Same pack for every seat. Secret "we will tell managers later" notes create fake agreement and a second rumor cycle.
Loop the review
Feed Pingpong the memo draft, FAQ, and exhibits. First pass steelmans the message. Later passes attack from employee, manager, leak, and customer seats. Final pass turns surviving objections into clearer ownership, tighter numbers, or a hold. Delete dual-counted wins and invented timelines.
Force a day-after narrative: what happens if the memo leaks, if a manager answers off-script, or if a customer quotes a line back in a renewal call. If those stories are stronger than your FAQ, fix the package before send. Separate internal memo review from a full all-hands script or layoff communications plan when those are also in flight. Run each as its own move.
When the memo cites a metric, force the skeptic seat to demand the exhibit and the definition. "Up and to the right" without a source becomes the first screenshot. Prefer one precise number with a footnote over three rounded claims that conflict with the board pack.
Related: war-game an all-hands message, war-game a layoff comms plan, review a crisis comms plan, before you announce layoffs, war-game an investor update, and the war-game decisions hub. Process: how to run a Pingpong.