Contingency Planning
In my experience contingency plans are rarely used and most useful in a directional sense. They are often difficult to start as they come up in dynamic circumstances.
I’ve developed contingency plans in the context of anticipated human displacement, high-risk event management, elections, and staffing reductions for Meta Platforms.
START WITH A FRAMEWORK TO ASSESS RISK: Start with two, max three anticipated scenarios. Rank them in terms of likelihood and impact on your clients and your ability to maintain an acceptable level of service delivery. If, as you explore scenarios and their impact, a scenario is unlikely to impede your ability to deliver then keep it as a footnote, don’t spend more time on it. A common pitfall is that a lot of time is spent getting into scenarios and detailed contingency planning and then too little time is spent socializing the plans with key stakeholders and the people expected to deliver on it.
Upfront create a framework to assess scenarios. A simple framework for analysis will help you and the team recognize risk patterns and see where you can draw from pre-made solutions. Keep this grounded in a layer of easy to access/create data. A set of data points for comparison, that indicate that things are big picture ok is incredibly useful. It’s also helpful in case you are dealing with a dynamic situation; if we get 100% more cases then X happens etc.
Contingency plans are best clear and concise. Always remember your audience. Two pages with hyperlinked guidance is often perfectly sufficient.
CLARIFY ROLES, RESPONSIBILITIES, ACCEPTABLE OUTCOMES: It’s critical to identify who will do what, why, who makes decisions, what needs to be communicated. Effective communications and transparent process are often the two early victims in the fog of crisis and will quickly hobble a response. This said, keep it high level. In most situations you do not need to get granular. It’s a waste of time you don’t have.
Clarify what is an acceptable immediate and mid term outcome. Maybe a deviation from established norms is unacceptable. Maybe your team will have to deprioritize certain functions for a specific amount of time. Or forever. Think about trade-offs, secondary and tertiary fall out of doing differently. Consider what is the one thing that cannot be dropped, cannot have a deterioration in quality.
Make sure that your leadership is onboard/has an opportunity to ask questions before an event happens.
IT'S TOUGH: Whatever happens, even the anticipation is tough on your team. I’ve never seen a situation unfold as expected but every time we’ve done a plan it’s been helpful on a team and leadership level. Cliches are for a reason: prepare for the worst and then be pleasantly surprised.
IN SUM: There is a saying in yoga teaching philosophy that goes ‘be true to the moment, not the plan.’ Have a plan if the circumstances merit it AND when the time comes do what serves your purpose the best.