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While each crisis comes with its unique challenges, having a checklist available can help you respond more quickly and effectively.

The Fast Fast Forward article, “Why design firms need a crisis communications plan,” explained that responding to a crisis is much easier if you’ve already appointed a crisis management team, established a relationship with a public relations (PR) firm, and developed a comprehensive plan that lays out the necessary steps to take in crisis situations. That article focused on your crisis communication plan; this article lists the steps you should take to manage the crisis.

Plan or no plan, crises will occur, and you need to be prepared when they do. Although the type and severity of the incident will determine your response, you must be able to take quick action on various fronts. When every moment counts, a checklist like the following could prove invaluable.

CRISIS MANAGEMENT CHECKLIST

In the event of a crisis:

• Convene a crisis management team. Try to include representatives from management, operations, communications, legal, IT, and human resources. The team will issue notifications, control and coordinate the dissemination and collection of information, and conduct an internal investigation. Appoint a crisis team leader.

The team will:

• Assess the crisis or potential crisis. Gather any available information and prepare to act. The team’s goal is to find out:
  • What happened
  • Where and when it happened
  • Who was affected
  • Who is involved
  • When the firm learned about the incident
  • What the impact/likely impact is
  • If there’s any immediate danger
  • What immediate action the firm should take
  • If the firm understands the entire issue

• Contact your insurance broker and carrier. AXA XL’s professional liability policy includes crisis event and reputation management coverage. Find out more by contacting your broker.

• Get legal help. Call your lawyer and work with your insurance carrier to retain defense counsel. Protect your legal privileges, including those involving communications with your lawyer and work your firm has done in anticipation of litigation.

Contact a PR firm experienced in crisis management as soon as possible to manage external communications. Your insurance policy may help defray some of these costs.

• Manage communications.
  • Contact a PR firm experienced in crisis management as soon as possible to manage external communications. Your insurance policy may help defray some of these costs.
  • Make sure crisis information is being communicated to staff. Instruct them to cease external communication about the incident and to refer all requests for information to your communications director (or designated individual).
  • Determine which external communications should be canceled or paused (including scheduled social media messaging, newsletters, and blast emails).
  • Develop talking points. Work with your lawyers and PR firm to create key messages for media, stakeholders, employees, and front-desk personnel.
  • Brief your client, contractor, and key project team members on the situation (as much as you can), remind them that you value your relationship, and reinforce the importance of working together to move ahead with the project.
  • Don’t accept (or assign) blame. Firms often accept responsibility for a problem too quickly and before all the facts are known.
  • Let other key project team members and consultants know you’re aware of the situation and are taking immediate steps to address it.

• Preserve critical evidence.
  • Unless instructed otherwise by your lawyer, be mindful about creating documents that could be used against your firm in a lawsuit.
  • Assemble project files from all sources, including individually maintained files, archived files, and site files.
  • Make a video and photographic record of the site, if appropriate.
  • Maintain files in a secure and controlled central location. Exempt those files from automatic destruction.
  • Make sure that any auto-delete email functions are disabled and that no documents are destroyed.
  • Identify all employees involved with the project, including former employees.
  • Identify all project participants, including subconsultants.
  • Advise subconsultants to begin collecting files.

• Begin the investigation.
  • Review agreements, including scopes of services.
  • Review project documents.
  • At your lawyer’s direction, conduct and document interviews of all employees who were present at the crisis site or who have firsthand information regarding the situation.

• Move to mitigate losses. Working with the project team, including contractors and the owner, plan how to minimize losses and (if applicable) restart the project as soon as possible.
  • Consider the impact on the project schedule.
  • Initiate a damage assessment.
  • Identify long-lead-time material/component needs.
  • Prepare and issue changes to the work.

• Meet with your employees. Make sure employees know what happened, what your firm plans to do about it, and what you need from them. There may be incorrect information in the media, and they’ll need to know how the crisis will affect the firm.

• Keep the firm working.
  • Shift work assignments for team members involved with the affected project so they can focus on the crisis.
  • If the crisis involves injury or loss of life, consider providing counseling services for staff.
  • Contact your human resources department, if necessary.

After the crisis has passed, the crisis management team should conduct a team debriefing to examine lessons learned. Consult with your lawyer to determine how best to document—or not document—the issues. Update (or create) your crisis management plan and revisit it at least annually. Share the revised plan with the entire firm and make the training part of new employee orientation.