Step 5: Rinse & Repeat

It may be tempting to go through this process once and think you have everything under control. But the Probability and Impact of any particular crisis can change over time and new ones may arise. You need to revisit your plan regularly to make sure that there aren’t any new scenarios that could cripple your business and reassess the Impact and Probability of every event since they can change over time. You may also decide some scenarios are no longer relevant. Feel free to remove them as you update the list.

While you’re sprucing up your plan, be sure to do a little housekeeping and inspect any of the measures you’ve put in place to reduce the Impact or Probability. For example, if you added more security cameras to offset a potential crisis, remember to make sure they are in good working order. The same goes for policies and procedures you’ve put into place. Take the time now and then to revisit every change you made to your operations.

If you are a larger company (250) employees or more, it is highly recommended that you go through a tabletop exercise at least annually to test your plan. Make it as real as possible and go through the drill as if everything is happening to you in real time. Choose a different crisis each time so that you come to understand that every event is different, but there are common responses (Response Modules) that you can standardize and use in any number of situations.