How can you integrate crisis communication into your risk management and business continuity planning?

PDCA is good tools to plan your contingencies for any risk. Plan your risk assessment in 360 degree . Donot leave any factor let it be small. Have SOP for each risk mitigation in place and should be known and practiced by all from top to bottom. Involving all line mangers to identify is good practice.

To create an effective crisis communication plan, you can follow these steps: Anticipate every eventuality. Prepare and predict all the potential crises that could occur, analyzing the risks, vulnerabilities and possible impacts. Create an issue management plan. Define the objectives, responsibilities and actions for each type of crisis, as well as the communication channels and tools to use. Train and test your crisis communication team. Provide them with a crisis communication training program that covers the best practices, dos and don’ts, common pitfalls and case studies. Conduct a crisis communication simulation exercise to test their skills, knowledge and performance.

Make the crisis communication simple to the point and in the language people understand it. Have back up for each role to when to act why to act whom to act and what to do at each step. All stake holders should be clear and have experienced to tackle the pressure from all direction with cool mind. Each tool kit should be latest and revised with various changes all around considering people, place, plant, product, promotion.

I would add that in a solid communication plan, one should analyze the plan in 4 parts: 1) Content, 2) Source, 3) Recipient and 4) Medium. 1) What is the message? 2) Who is the message from and why? 3) Who is going to receive the message and its expected impact? 4) What are the best vehicles to send the message? Seeing communication through those lenses will make it easier for a team to assess risk in a well-rounded, holistic way.

Putting policies on wall and on net will solve the crisis. All stake holders should be trained with clear practical training on regular basis. All crisis team should have back to act in case of any vaccum. On-site / offsite emergency plan should be made and rehearsed on full scale. Monitor should see the loop holes and redo the plan.

Regular practice of whole process will install a sense of confidence. The team will act with confidence at any given time. After each practice do the SWOT analysis to see the success of the risk management.

In order to sustain a growing business, proactive planning is required. This will require updating the crisis team on positive changes improving the business. Communication is an integral knowledge area in Project planning. Regular Training and reviews of the crisis team is required., Documentation will also aid in proper review and update. This will enable the communication crisis team will be able to keep up to date with the Planning team.A seamless synergy and interactive communication within the Planning, Crisis and Management is recommended .