The essential elements of a successful crisis plan

A crisis plan serves as an important guide for preparing for, managing, and evaluating a crisis. In this blog post, we’ll take a closer look at how to develop a crisis plan, covering the key elements of an effective crisis plan. This will help you know exactly what to consider when drafting or revising a crisis plan.

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Introduction

It is important to outline the context of the crisis plan in the introduction. This context can be divided into two parts:

• The scope. Does this plan focus solely on crisis management, or should it be viewed within a broader context? What is the relationship between the crisis plan and any other plans? How does your organization define a crisis? Which laws, frameworks, and standards regarding crisis management apply to your organization?
• The objective. Is it a policy plan, an action plan, or a combination of both?

Preparation

In this section of the crisis plan, describe how your organization prepares for crisis situations:

• The crisis plan. Describe who is responsible for implementing and keeping the crisis plan up to date. This could be a department, a specific role, or a position.
• Education, training, and drills ( ETD). How often does your crisis team(s) conduct training and/or drills? Are ETD activities organized for specific crisis roles?
• Tools. What tools does your organization use in its various procedures? For example, crisis management software, alerting tools, or a learning management system.

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Crisis Management Team

It is important to describe the structure of the crisis management team. You can illustrate this by including an organizational chart of the crisis management team, as its structure may differ from the “normal” organizational structure. In this chapter, also discuss the various crisis teams and their roles.  

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Response

The "Response" chapter describes how the crisis management team springs into action. Be sure to describe the following:

• Alerting and escalating. Who has the authority to decide to escalate? How is it determined whether escalation is necessary? And how are people alerted?
• Crisis meetings. What does the meeting cycle look like? How does the decision-making process work? How are crisis meetings documented? How does information flow between the crisis team and the other parts of the crisis organization?
• Crisis communication. What are the objectives of crisis communication? How does the crisis communication team operate?

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Post-phase

The "Post-crisis" section of a crisis plan describes the period following the crisis. Below are some elements that may be included in this section:

• Psychosocial aftercare. It is important to be mindful of the psychosocial consequences of the crisis. The crisis plan can provide for care and support for those affected and for employees.
• Evaluation. It is important to evaluate the crisis and assess how effective the crisis plan was. This can be done using an evaluation form and/or an evaluation meeting.
• Revision of the crisis plan. It is important to evaluate the crisis plan and implement any necessary improvements.

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Flying start

Want to get off to a flying start when creating a crisis plan? We’ve developed a free crisis plan template to help you get started. Click here to download it.

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