Introduction

Strategic Crisis Management focuses on preparing organizations to effectively anticipate, respond to, and recover from crises. It emphasizes proactive planning, rapid decision-making, coordinated communication, and risk mitigation to protect organizational operations and reputation. The program equips professionals with tools to identify vulnerabilities, manage emergency situations, and ensure business continuity under pressure.

Objectives 

Delegates attending will:

• Acquire in-depth knowledge of the key aspects of Strategic Crisis Management
• Learn how to identify incidents and crises so you can cultivate and harness the potential successes of a crisis.
• At the incident, the site learns how to avoid mismanagement and so makes a bad situation worse.
• Learn how to generate ownership and responsibility by all stakeholders to ensure your organization responds efficiently and effectively.
• Learn how to recognize and prioritize the issues that are most likely to affect corporate reputation during and after a crisis.
• Learn the fundamentals of organizing and managing Crisis or Emergency Control Centres.
• Learn how to plan and manage multi-agency exercises - and make them more rewarding and exciting.
• Take away step by step guidance on how to validate plans, to improve staff ownership, to augment training programs, and to raise awareness.

Target Audience

• Crisis and Emergency Management Professionals
• Senior Executives and Decision Makers
• Risk Management and Business Continuity Managers
• Security and Safety Professionals
• Corporate Communication and PR Specialists
• Operations and Facility Managers
• Government and Public Sector Emergency Planners
• HSE (Health, Safety & Environment) Professionals
• Organizational Leaders in high-risk industries
• Consultants in crisis preparedness and resilience

Outlines

Day 1: What should be in place before the event?

• Understanding Crisis Management
  • How to manage a crisis?
  • Virtually every crisis contains the seeds of success as well as the roots of failure
  • The Rationale of the Crisis Manager
• Consider the range of risks: Natural/Environmental; Hazards; Technological - loss of utilities/product/process/plant; Human Error; Sabotage and Terrorism
• Crisis Managers - Roles & Responsibilities - manage the issue before it becomes a Crisis
• Who else inside and outside the organization should be involved?
• Evaluating your risks and vulnerabilities; Consider the worse-case scenarios
• Understanding 'denial-curve' and 'group-think' syndromes
• Who decides who sits in the 'hot-seat'?
• Case Studies, why some companies fail, and others survive?

Day 2: Pre-planning, who and what else should be considered?

• Who owns the mitigation process?
  • Self-evaluating questionnaires
• Developing and Implementing Emergency Plans
• Twelve point checklist covering the whole planning process
• Mutual Aid arrangements
• Company-wide strategic contingency plans
• Service or departmental plans
• Building evacuation plans
• Crisis Management and Communications. Emergency Centre/s
• Developing and implementing a Business Continuity Management (BCM) strategy
• Business Impact Analysis. Case Study and Workshop

Day 3: Dealing with a crisis - the 'communications' perspective

• Command and Control Issues
  • Operational (at the scene)
  • Tactical (at the forward control point/incident command)
  • Strategic (boardroom level/emergency operations center)
• On Scene Crisis Management, essential elements for success
• Reputation Management - Managing the Media. 'How to' sessions include:
• Organizing a Press Conference
• Conducting Radio and Television Interviews
• Case Study Exercise: Crisis Communications Strategy. Develop a crisis communications strategy and action plan based upon a given scenario

Day 4: Incident Management & Aftermath

• Alerting and Warning. Case Studies. What can go right and what can go wrong
• Case Studies - Texas City Disasters 1947 and April 2005
• Major Incident Simulation - Role Playing Workshop
  • Syndicate selection
  • Reporting back
• Potential Psychological & Welfare problems in Crisis Management
• How to improve staff morale and confidence in the process
• The psychological effects during and after an incident involving injuries - and worse
• Looking after yourself and your staff
• A questionnaire, are your batteries in good condition?

Day 5: Essential post-incident actions

• Validating plans and procedures
  • Discuss the four types of exercise
  • How to get the most out of an exercise
• Post Incident evaluations
• De-briefing skills - managing the de-briefs - hot and cold
• How to keep all 'stakeholders' informed
• Prioritizing the Recommendations
• Examples of critique questionnaires
• Critique report writing, executive summaries, and recommendations
• Closing the loop. How to continue the process
• Case Study - Buncefield Oil Depot, Hertfordshire UK, 2005