This interactive and participative training course will demonstrate that it is possible for an organisation to plan for those ‘Unexpected Challenges’. It covers the best practices and the proven way of successfully dealing with a crisis. This training course will constructively help delegates to develop those essential crisis management skills and reveal how to effectively use advanced techniques that will improve leadership performance at that critical time.

Delegates will gain tangible results with up-to-date case studies and exercises to reinforce key learning points for immediate implementation at their workplaces. This training course will ensure you do not make the same mistakes of those other Crisis Managers. Your organisation must be prepared; without delay it needs to identify all potential vulnerabilities, map out the possible crisis scenarios and mitigate shortcomings.

This  training course will feature:

• Best practice advise drawing on the expertise of crisis researchers, analysts and practitioners
• How to consider the main areas of activity: Preparation, Planning, Response and Recovery
• Getting the maximum from emergency responders and crisis management teams
• How to avoid mis-management and so make a bad situation worse
• Managing yourself and others, make judgements, redefine standards, establish options

By the end of this  training course, participants will be able to:

• Acquire an in-depth knowledge of the key aspects of Strategic Crisis Management
• Develop strategies so ensuring you and your organisation responds efficiently and effectively
• Understand the five deadly leadership behaviours and six winning strategies in a crisis
• Learn the fundamentals of organising and managing Crisis or Emergency Control Centres
• Acquire step-by-step guide on how to plan for more beneficially rewarding multi-agency exercises

Day One: What should be in place before the Event?

• Understanding Crisis Management and how to manage a Crisis
• Consider the complete range of risks facing businesses in the 21st century
• Crisis Managers - Roles & Responsibilities - manage the issue before it becomes a Crisis
• Who else inside and outside the organisation should be involved?
• Five deadly Leadership behaviours & Six winning strategies
• Understanding 'denial-curve' and 'group-think' syndromes

Day Two: Pre-planning, who and what else should be Considered?

• Case Studies, why some companies fail and others survive?
• Who owns the mitigation process?
• Developing and Implementing Emergency 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 Three: Dealing with a Crisis - the 'Communications' Perspective

• Command and Control Issues. Operational, Tactical and Strategic
• On Scene Crisis Management, essential elements for success
• Reputation Management - Managing the Media.
• Organising a Press Conference & step by step guidance on how to conduct TV interviews
• BP Press Conferences – What went wrong?
• Exercise: Crisis Communications Strategy

Day Four: Incident Management & Aftermath

• Alerting and Warning. Case Studies. What can go right and what can go wrong
• Corporate Case Study – BP Texas 2005; BP Alaska 2006; BP Gulf of Mexico 2010.
• Major Incident Simulation - Role Playing Workshop
• Potential Psychological & Welfare problems in Crisis Management
• How to improve staff morale and confidence in the process
• Questionnaire, are your batteries in good condition?

 Essential Post Incident Actions

• Exercises: a programme of learning and of validating plans and procedures;
• How to get advantageous results from an exercise
• Post Incident evaluations, de-briefing skills - managing the de-briefs - hot and cold
• Critique report writing, executive summaries and recommendations
• Closing the loop. Implementing the recommendations, continuing the process
• 3 disastrous Case Studies with the same cause, are we learning from others?

Day Five: Problem analysis supplementary tools

• Root cause analysis
• Creative problem solving and decision making
• The five-why process
• The cause and effect diagram
• The fishbone diagram
• Pareto analysis

Decision making supplementary tools

• Effective decision making
• Why-Why and how-how analysis
• The how-how method
• Choice making
• The decision analysis worksheet
• The Kepner & Tregoe method for analyzing alternatives
• Use of the matrix
• Effective decision making
• The decision making matrix
• Definition of ‘consensus’

Creativity and problem solving

• The need for thinking skills
• Mental structures of college students
• Stages in problem solving and decision making
• The human brain
• Understanding the two hemispheres of the brain
• Critical thinking
• Lateral thinking
• Mental blocks to creative thinking
• Brainstorming
• The six thinking hats