What are the four steps to creating a successful MPR crisis communications plan? Explain each step fully

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The first step is to perform a vulnerability audit based on interviews with people in your organization in which you ask them what might go wrong and why. Your interviewees should range from top executives to managers to line employees, and you should ask them a few simple open-ended questions, including, "What do you think might go wrong here that would result in a crisis?" You'll want to consider likely crises and worst-case scenarios, delve into bizarre possibilities, and rate each one on the likelihood of occurrence and on the impact it would have on the firm. The second step is creating the heart of the plan, which refers to the part of the plan that coordinates notification of key leaders during a crisis, as well as notification of the media, employees, customers, the community, and other key stakeholders specific to your organization. The heart of the plan clarifies every step to take in the communications process from the beginning until the end of the crisis. Each plan should have two sets of statement templates. The first is a very basic fill-in-the-blank template often called "the first critical statement. The second statement is a more detailed statement, known as a scenario statement. Creating scenario statements is the third step of developing a crisis communications plan. Go down your list of possible crisis scenarios identified in step 1 and write out what you would say to your critical audiences in the event that each of these situations happens. These are essentially templates that will be modified and updated on the day you need them. Include fill-in-the-blank sections that allow you to add the "who, what, when, where, why, and how" followed by a complete script that you or a spokesperson can say verbatim during the crisis. The fourth step of the process is testing the crisis communications plan. A practice drill can expose and correct flaws in a plan such as potential personality conflicts with leaders or responders. Conflicts and leadership failures can then be addressed in an evaluation session following the drill, so that they are not repeated on the day of a crisis. A drill also allows you to test the quality of your spokespeople as well.