In-crisis decision making: five steps to wow!

Continuing with our responses to questions and comments regarding this information series, ‘In-crisis decision making’; a number of questions can be paraphrased as ‘You gave us a lot of great ideas and things to think about, but how do we assess our existing program in order to determine which enhancements are required?’ or ‘Our crisis management program is not as robust as we want it to be – where do we start?’

An additional related question was ‘Why or when should we reassess our existing crisis management capability’.

There are many reasons why an organization must periodically take a detailed look at its crisis management program; asking basic questions, such as: ‘Can our organization really withstand the effects of a major crisis; are we fully capable of responding effectively and decisively’?
It may be time if:

It has been three years or more since your crisis management program has been assessed;
Major organizational changes have taken place;

Significant reductions in key personnel have occurred;

Budget constraints have prevented effective program maintenance (i.e. training);

Management are uninvolved with or unaware of the existing crisis management program;

Makeup of your crisis management organization has substantially changed and / or;
You have general concerns as to the stability and capability of your existing crisis management program.

While there are arguably twenty plus critical success factors to a fully operational crisis management program; there are seven key areas that should be your initial focus.

These are:

I. Enterprise level strategy - the policy driven requirement that the crisis management program exists to support or otherwise safeguard every employee in every company location in the world regardless of political or organizational alignment or functional role of the individual.

II. Crisis response team – the enterprise structure, team makeup, roles, responsibilities, qualifications of team members and overall team capability.

III. Management policies and operational compliance ‘standards’ – the directives, rules, techniques, strategies and operational processes applied and employed by the Crisis Response Team in its response to a crisis event or threatening situation.

IV. In-crisis process – the actions taken by the crisis response team from an event / threat assessment and notification to response and resolution.

V. Continuing education and training – the type, frequency and quality of ongoing education and training received by the crisis response team, including; reinforcement exercises, crisis simulation exercises, education forums and pre-event response planning workshops.

VI. Crisis preparedness program - ensuring all incident, emergency, crisis and disaster response plans are independently capable of responding to the situation they were designed to manage and sufficiently integrated to provide a coordinated process should a major threat or crisis situation exist. This is the event-driven integration of crisis management, business continuity management, technology continuity management and incident emergency response.

VII. The alignment of management expectations and requirements – ensuring that the crisis management program and all operational components are effectively aligned to the expectations and requirements of your board of directors, executive management, line of business leaders and, equally your employees and, to varying degrees, key external stakeholders.

Each of these components has been discussed to varying levels of detail in previous parts of this information series. As such, we will not repeat those details here, but rather focus on the process by which you can determine your overall crisis management operational status, existing capabilities and, as required an enhancement strategy and plan.

The five steps to wow!

Establishing and maintaining a truly effective crisis management capability can be a daunting task. Keeping executives interested, keeping your team members engaged, achieving a high level of visibility throughout your organization and maintaining a high level of preparedness are some of the objectives and challenges of most. When things go ‘boom’ crisis management gets a lot of attention but unfortunately (and fortunately), not all organizations experience major crises on a regular basis, therefore; their capability is not really tested.

As such, it doesn’t take long before a crisis management program response capability weakens, often due to neglect. For those that do not have a formal crisis management program, the challenges to establish one can be even more difficult. As stated earlier, CRPC received a number of comments and questions related to performing an assessment of their current crisis management program and their crisis management capability.

We are going to discuss five steps that can be taken by any organization that, while fairly simple in terms of execution, can have a profound impact on your crisis management program; significantly enhancing your overall capability to respond to and manage a crisis situation. This is a positive approach whereby you engage management and those involved with your crisis management program to cooperatively identify deficiencies and corresponding enhancements.

For this purpose we will be using terminology consistent with the previous parts of this information series. The term crisis response team (CRT) should be taken as the team you have established or would like to establish as the team having operational response responsibility for crises that threaten or impact your organization.

Applying the assessment steps described below will allow you to effectively assess your current crisis management status and overall capabilities, as well as identifying areas of improvement and any enhancements required to attain a capabilities level acceptable to your organization.

Step 1 Reality check on the pulse of crisis management. Ascertain management’s understanding, expectations, requirements, support and concerns of and for the organization’s crisis management program. A similar assessment from the perspective of your existing crisis response team is equally important.

Step 2 Assess the ‘rules of engagement’. Review existing crisis management policies, operational standards, mandate and current documentation; measuring how well all components are aligned with expectations and requirements established in Step 1.

Step 3 Conduct a ‘performance assessment’. Using single or multiple scenario based exercises, evaluate your in-crisis process, the individual performance of team members related to contribution, leadership and cooperation, as well as the team’s overall performance related to situational assessment, decision making and applying the rules of engagement.

Step 4 Prepare a crisis management program ‘enhancement plan’. Through an interactive workshop with all primary members of your CRT review findings, conclusions and requirements established in previous steps to determine desired / required enhancements. Prepare a CRT approved enhancement plan.

Step 5 Obtain management approvals and implement your plan. Conduct an executive management presentation focused on the assessment process just completed, major findings and resulting enhancement steps and recommendations. Finalize your enhancement plan based on management approvals; implement as quickly as possible.

I suggest you consider using a third party organization as your project director to facilitate the assessment (or use company employees who are NOT members of your existing crisis response team). This level of independence will result in a more objective assessment, ensure all of your team members equally participate and generally may have a higher probability of acceptance within your organization.

Completing the above five steps will clearly confirm the overall capability of your existing crisis management program and provide a definitive roadmap of enhancement activities to achieve the level of effectiveness required.

The process and a few ideas…..

Step1: Reality check on the pulse of crisis management

The objective of this step is to produce a general statement of awareness and understanding of the existing crisis management program on the part of key stakeholders. As well, the process will obtain views and opinions on what is right and what is wrong with the existing program. Expectations and requirements of the crisis management program should be an additional and important deliverable from the interview process. Establishing some level of consensus on various matters would be used to shape future program components.

This step commences with interviews of three principal groups by the project director:

Executive management: Ideally the entire executive management team should be interviewed, but minimally 50 percent of the team must participate to effectively represent management views, expectations, requirements, concerns and general satisfaction levels.

Line manager of each member of the CRT: A discussion with the direct manager of each CRT member should be focused on obtaining their understanding of the crisis management program, its importance to the organization, the role their representative has on the CRT, their support level and commitment to the program and any concerns they may have regarding the crisis management program in general.

CRT members: A one-on-one interview with each member of your existing crisis response team should focus on the individual’s view of team training, performance, strengths and weaknesses. In addition, determining what each team member believes should be done to correct any weaknesses identified and improve on the overall capability of the team should be key deliverables from each interview.

With completion of step 1, an ‘enhancement opportunity analysis’ report should be generated detailing the interview results along with an overall assessment of the organization’s crisis management program from the perspective of those interviewed. The report should focus on expectations, requirements, strengths and areas of improvement. The enhancement opportunity analysis should be shared with those interviewed, providing an opportunity to comment on or otherwise confirm your findings.

Note: It is highly probable that your executive management know less about your current crisis management program than you think or hoped they do (crisis management is not uppermost on their minds). As such, you will get as many questions as answers or opinions. This Q&A should not form part of your enhancement opportunity analysis; the Q&A will be given further consideration in steps 4 and 5.

Step 2: Assess the ‘rules of engagement’

The objective of step 2 is to validate that the crisis management program’s existing policies, mandate, roles and responsibilities and operational standards are effectively aligned to the expectation and requirements agreed to in step 1.

This step should be comprised of:

CRT workshop: A workshop facilitated by the project director with the primary members of the crisis response team will result in a detailed review of all existing documented, alleged or understood interpretations of existing crisis management related policies, mandates, operational standards and all other directives that dictate or determine the roles and responsibilities of the crisis response team before, during and after a crisis situation.

The workshop should minimally consider the following elements:

Program ownership and maintenance responsibilities,

Crisis management organization – structure and participation,

Response priorities, life safety, brand image, business operations, etc.,

Roles of crisis management team (executive management) versus crisis response team,

Support of remote dependent sites,

Authority to act,

In-crisis decision making (who and how),

In-crisis event documentation,

Management notification and status reporting,

Use of automated tools and services to support response and control,

Situational assessment and crisis determination,

Event alert levels and determination criteria,

Crisis command center operations,

Compliance management,

Threat risk assessment process,

Pre-event response planning,

Continuing education and training program.

The importance of one item warrants a more comprehensive discussion; the operational integration of crisis management with business continuity management, technology continuity management and incident emergency response. The focus here is to ensure there is a clear and well understood process that maintains the operational independence of the four components of crisis preparedness; while ensuring a well coordinated response in a major crisis situation. The discussions should include; related policies, operational priorities, ownership, mandate, role and responsibilities, decision making authorities and integrated or overlapping in-crisis processes.

Preparation of a rules of engagement analysis: A report summarizing the findings (positive and negative), conclusions, decisions and / or recommendations that the crisis response team want acted upon or considered as part of the overall program assessment. On its own, this report does not require distribution at this time to persons external to the CRT.

Step 3: Conduct a ‘performance assessment’
The objectives of this step are to assess the collective capability of your crisis response team using a crisis simulation exercise and to assess all operational components of your existing crisis management program.

CRT crisis simulation exercise: Develop and facilitate an interactive role-playing crisis simulation exercise with a predefined outcome and based on an event scenario that has occurred in the past, has a relatively high probability of occurring and / or one that is of considerable concern to the organization. Some exercise development suggestions to ensure success are:

Facilitate the selected crisis simulation exercise applying existing in-crisis processes. All primary and designated backup members of the crisis response team should participate.
The exercise should incorporate a large number of event changes (30 – 40), deescalating and escalating factors, rumors and speculation, political interference and role playing from 6 – 8 internal and external stakeholders.

The exercise should drive (through scripting) the active participation of each discipline represented on the crisis response team (i.e. corporate security, business continuity management, human resources, public affairs, facilities management, safety, technology continuity management).

The exercise should incorporate interaction with your crisis management team (executive management team) requiring update sessions (2 – 3), recommendation approvals and joint decision making.

The crisis simulation exercise should incorporate activities, incidents and / or events that will explicitly require demonstrated leadership, full participation and team decision making by creating situations of subject matter discomfort, controversy, objections and differing opinions. Strong arguments / disagreements will often lead to better decisions.

To effectively achieve the stated objectives, it will be necessary to develop an exercise that can be concluded within six hours with a two hour debriefing. All scheduled breaks and lunch should be held in the training center (crisis command center).

Do not incorporate testing of your business continuity and technology continuity plans into this crisis management exercise. The resulting complexity would leave little room for success and alter the response priorities of the crisis response team. This should be an evaluation of your crisis management capability only.

The project director or a designate (not a member of the CRT) should function as the exercise facilitator who will be responsible for development and facilitation of the overall exercise. Utilization of one or possibly two ‘exercise observers’ (with specific monitoring and assessment duties) is required to fairly and accurately make the required assessments.

CRT performance self assessment: With conclusion of the crisis simulation exercise (whether deemed successful or not), the crisis response team should complete an operational assessment of their own performance (self assessment). Coordinated by the CRT team leader (and excluding the project director and / or the exercise facilitator); the CRT would critique its performance (not the exercise):

What the team did well / strengths of the team,

What the team did poorly / weaknesses of the team,

What the team needs to improve on,

What ‘program’ enhancements would improve the team’s performance,

Other operational concerns related to the organization’s crisis management program.

This self assessment must be an honest and constructive view of the team’s performance, including; makeup of the team, the active participation of each team member, leadership, team member contribution, understanding the crisis management program’s mandate and priorities, the application of in-crisis standards and processes,

Facilitator assessment: The exercise facilitator, in conjunction with the exercise observers would coordinate the preparation of an overall capabilities assessment; consisting of:

Assessment of CMT members that participated in terms of their impact on or affect on the performance of the CRT or outcome of the exercise (required to ensure assessment of the CRT is not influenced by unpredictable actions of the CMT members).

Assessment of role players that participated in terms of their impact on or affect on the performance of the CRT or outcome of the exercise (required to ensure assessment of the CRT is not influenced by unpredictable actions of the role players).

Assessment of the applicability and workability of the applied policies, standards, in-crisis process and the tools being utilized to enhance response and control activities. Where applicable enhancement alternatives or recommendations should be established.

Assessment of the crisis response team with primary focus on:
makeup of the team in terms of disciplines represented,
functional experience and knowledge of team members,
general contribution of each team member,
interaction and cohesiveness of the crisis response team members,
compatibility of the team,
leadership strengths and weaknesses,
understanding of their role and responsibilities,
approach and ability to make time-sensitive decisions,
team’s application of operational standards,
adoption of the pre-defined in-crisis process,
integration to operational components of crisis preparedness,
interactions with CMT and other external groups or individuals.

Note: It is critically important to understand that this assessment is not questioning or measuring an individual’s capability to perform their role in the organization (their job), but rather and only, whether or not they possess the skills and experience demanded by events that must be managed in a crisis situation.

The project director should, through the exercise and assessment, draw conclusions and make recommendations to correct or mitigate areas of concern for review and discussion in Step 4. The resulting ‘crisis management program assessment’ reports would at this time only be distributed to the primary members of the crisis response team.

Step 4 Prepare a crisis management program assessment ‘enhancement plan’
The objective of step 4, employing a workshop format, is for the CRT and the project director to collaborate on the preparation of the crisis management enhancement plan.

An interactive workshop, based on the findings, results and conclusions of steps 1 – 3 and the crisis management program assessment reports, should be held with the primary members of the crisis response team to develop a ‘crisis management program enhancement plan’.

The workshop would be developed and facilitated by the Project director,

The CRT should consider the findings, conclusions and recommendations from all reports and analysis generated in steps 1 – 3;

Enhancement opportunity analysis (step 1),

Executive management Q and A (step 1),

Rules of engagement analysis (step 2),

The five crisis management program assessment reports (step 3).

The CRT analysis should result in an acceptance, rejection or an on-hold status (future consideration) for each recommendation / decision made.

The project director should then prepare a crisis management program enhancement plan report incorporating the analysis prepared by the CRT. The report should be distributed to all members of the CRT for comment and finalization.

Step 5 Obtain management approvals and implement your plan

The objective of step 5 is to obtain management approval for implementation of the crisis management program enhancement plan prepared by the project director and the CRT.

The project director, in conjunction with the CRT team leader, would develop a management presentation reflecting the crisis management program assessment project and the resulting enhancement plan.

The project director and the CRT team leader would jointly facilitate an executive management working session to review the ‘major’ components of the enhancement plan for those components that require management approval (versus the operational decisions that can be made by the CRT itself).

If required, as a result of the executive management presentation and discussion, update the crisis management program enhancement plan for distribution to all CRT members for their review.
Implementation of the enhanced crisis management program should be based on the new program versus an update of enhancements and should consider:

Program awareness training (presentation and discussion) with the executive management team (one hour session),

Program awareness training (presentation and discussion) with the organization’s business leaders (functional heads), (one hour session),

Program awareness and high level operational training with senior management of each of the functional groups represented on the CRT (i.e. corporate security, human resources, public affairs, business continuity management), (two hour session), and Operational training for the CRT utilizing the enhanced crisis management program standards and processes (three hour session based on a scenario based exercise).

The assessment strategy presented above will not fit every organization perfectly; it will greatly depend on the existence or maturity level of your crisis management program. Nonetheless, whether applied as presented or customized to meet your needs, the process will deliver a comprehensive capability assessment without going through an exhaustive and resource intensive review or development project.

Source: Dennis C. Hamilton link