Elements Of A Good Crisis Management Plan

Don't fall victim to an ineffective crisis management plan.

A good crisis management plan can mean the difference between keeping people safe in an emergency and jeopardizing their health and wellness. From a business perspective, it can be a determining factor in preserving your company or being forced to close it down. Consequently, there are many reasons why schools, businesses and government agencies rely on crisis management plans, and understand the necessity in creating ones that have all the effective elements.

Organizational and Communication Tree

When a crisis presents itself, you will not have time to figure out who needs to do what and who needs to contact who. This information must be thought about and decided on in advance, and the information must be located in the crisis management plan. An organizational and communication tree illustrates the main responders to a crisis within an organization. For instance, the company's human resource director may be responsible for letting the company managers know of a crisis, and each manager may be responsible for letting his direct reports know of the crisis. It is important for the organizational and communication tree to be a part of the crisis management plan so that everyone knows who they are supposed to contact in an emergency.

Identified Crises

The crisis management plan must identify a variety of potential crises that can occur, such as environmental crises, technological crises, product or service crises, or financial crises. Within each identified crisis, the management plan should have a scoring system in place to rate the different levels of a crisis. A plan of action must be affiliated with each level, since a low-scale crisis will not warrant the same response plan that a severe crisis requires. Crises should be grouped together by relevancy so that they can be easily located in the crisis management plan.

Prevention Steps

A well-crafted crisis management plan will detail steps that can be taken in order to avoid crises. The prevention section of the plan can be developed once the various crises are identified. Prevention activities may include routine audits and monitoring efforts, risk assessments, hazard interventions and staff crisis response training.

Checks and Balances

In case a crisis cannot be prevented, a checks and balances section of your crisis management plan will allow you to determine whether you have followed all of the identified protocols for responding to a crisis. Some items on the checks and balances list may include if all employees have been notified, if buildings have been evacuated or if emergency responders have been contacted. In the time of a crisis, you do not want to forget something of importance.

Resource List

Your crisis management plan should have a resource list with the names and contact information for people you might need to access in an emergency. This can range from the phone number of the city water company to the contact information of a cab service that may be needed for transportation.

Evaluation

A good crisis management plan will document the incidents that occur and provide an evaluation of the events from a strategic angle. The evaluation section will discuss how things went wrong, and what improvement efforts can be instituted to ensure the crisis does not repeat itself in the future.

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