Assignment Prompt & Instructions
**Background**
An integration experience that demonstrates ability to comprehend the learning outcomes, to apply and transfer their growing knowledge in the areas of crisis and risk analysis, and to guide organizational executives in process steps to mediate the situation. The document is designed as a partial replication of a real-world crisis communications plan that would instruct the crisis team in recovery steps.
**Instructions**
A crisis plan is an action document and presented in sections and instructional bullet lists. It is not developed as a typical academic paper, as it is closer to an operational guide.
The assignment includes the following sections:
– Company overview. Select a public company that is supported with a sophisticated web site that provides insight into the organization’s history, product, services, vision, mission and geographic areas in which it operates. Use in-text citations to credit the source materials that are consulted.
– Identify and explain a list of 5 to 7 vulnerabilities that may develop into a full crisis scenario impacting the selected organization. Rank the potential issues in order of likelihood of occurrence. Provide limited descriptions of each vulnerability, and insight into why it poses a notable risk.
– Select one potential crisis area to examine in greater detail. For example: an active shooter in a high school, a fire in an industrial complex or a major environmental event (seasonal wildfire). Provide insight into the event and its complexity. Strive to utilize key terms, concepts and conclusions from throughout the course experience and materials.
– List and discuss the top five stakeholders who would be impacted by the crisis event. Break out the stakeholders by category (internal audiences or external publics) and list in order of importance. Briefly explain what the stakeholders would hope to know about the event and its impact.
– Identify the proposed members of the Crisis Management Team (CMT). These individuals should have the experience and authority to implement their section of a larger Crisis Communications Plan. The Team may include departments such as Facilities, Security, Human Resources and Information Technology.
– State the key communicators who will lead the process. Outline some primary responsibilities.
– Determine how employees would receive word of the crisis. State which communications channels would be deployed (e.g., an internal phone tree, e-mail, texts on company phones or area meetings).
– Conduct research into the community in which the company conducts business. Note the various traditional media outlets (print, television and radio) that would need to be notified if a crisis were to occur. Project key messages that would be positioned and the media relations tools that would be produced, such as press releases, fact sheets or talking points to guide the assigned spokesperson.
– Forecast what social media platforms might be used to accentuate the messaging process.
– Forecast three primary messages that would notify stakeholders of the development and provide foundational information about the crisis.
– Outline key crisis management procedures. Associate action steps/accountability to the responsible departments or individual Crisis Management Team members.
– Extend best practice recommendations that could be used for future crisis drills and other training.
– Give appropriate credit to all sources consulted for this activity. Include in-text citations, where warranted.
– Present the plan in third person.
– Construct the document as it is advisory in nature. Language should be directive and easy to comprehend so, ideally, members of the Crisis Management Team could efficiently implement their “piece of the puzzle” and follow the Communication Director’s instructions.
– Use section headings to ensure the document is user-friendly.
– Include any resources that would supplement the plan document or further detail the recommended processes in the backmatter/appendix section of the document. Examples include tables of organization, key Crisis Management Team job descriptions, Crisis Room supplies or other content that provides insight into how the plan document would sync with other preparatory and implementation activities.
– If existing plans, templates or other guiding materials are consulted during the development of this plan, clearly identify the content origin in the Facsimile Plan with in-text citations.
– Include a cover page.
– Include a references section.
– Apply the fundamentals of APA form and style (7th edition). A basic in-text citation includes this presentation and information (author, year of publication, page or paragraph) or (Smith, 2024, p. 27). An in-text citation that includes a paragraph would appear as (ABC Company About Us, 2024, para. 3).
Length: must be 8 to 12 pages, excluding the title and reference pages).
References: Include 5 scholarly or industry resources. Include in-text citations and full citations within the references section of the paper.
– 2 years ago