People, not plans, manage crises. But, a clear, simple and practical crisis plan can help you navigate them. It can provide guidance and grounding in a complex and fast-moving situation. It can help you get on the front foot and structure your response to make and implement effective decisions.
Your crisis plan should be separate from your wider crisis management policy.
Your policy – i.e. definitions, classification levels and criteria, how crisis management fits in with other organizational resilience components, how crisis management is structured and escalated across the organization – informs your crisis preparedness planning and training in ‘peacetime’.
Your plan is what you pick up in the heat of the moment, once a crisis has been declared, to support your response.
Don’t write a step-by-step guide of what to do in every situation. A crisis is unexpected and unprecedented. Flicking through pages of scenarios to find the relevant one and expecting to find the right response won’t work. What you need is a set of clear, simple guidelines applicable to any situation.
Your plan should cover:
Team composition: core roles needed in any crisis and additional roles based on the situation at hand; roles are functional (e.g. crisis leader, legal, communications, HR, finance, etc.) rather than personal; each function has a nominated alternate
Mobilization: how you call the team together, where/how it operates and any relevant logistics
Roles and responsibilities: role of the team (v. others) and responsibilities of its members – the plan should remove ambiguities as to who does what and where accountabilities lie
Initial steps: your first crisis meeting is crucial to set the foundation for an effective response – focus on assessing the situation and its impacts, setting the broad response strategy, establishing how the team will operate and agreeing initial actions/deliverables
Ongoing considerations: any further protocols to follow, from scenario planning, stakeholder engagement, information capture and information management, to stand down
Make it practical with supporting tools and templates. For a crisis management plan, consider roles and responsibilities checklists, meeting agendas and information capture logs. For a crisis communications plan, consider templates that support messaging and statement development (internal/external), monitoring (traditional/social media) and coordination of stakeholder engagement.
Remember, people, not plans, manage crises. Train and exercise against your plan to give your people an opportunity to practice a crisis response in real time. This will also highlight any gaps and allow you to refine your plan, so it’s ready to guide you when a crisis hits.
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