Free Contingency Plan Templates
With a view to project management, a contingency plan provides a guide for quick action to ensure the smooth continuation of operations. In this blog, we’ll explore what a contingency plan is, why it’s essential, and how you can create an effective contingency plan to mitigate risks and save any projects from going downhill. There are several types of contingency plans that can be used to help an organization prepare for and respond to unexpected events. Customizing a contingency plan template starts with identifying the risks your business faces.
Organizations build contingency plans to help them face a variety of threats, including natural disasters, unplanned downtime, data loss, network breaches and sudden shifts in customer demand. You should also bear in mind that the contingency planning process is a proactive strategy. There are also some cases of positive contingency plans too. However, a business contingency plan template in the business isn’t always negative. With the help of contingency plan template, you can make sure that there’s always a continuity in the business. A contingency plan example may be positive but more often than not, it mostly refers to negative events.
Contingency plan examples
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- Once your contingency plan has been approved by and shared with all the relevant parties, you’ll need to test it to make sure your crisis management works as intended.
- A simple contingency plan is a pre-planned strategy designed to address unforeseen events or emergencies that could disrupt a project or business operation.
- Hence, a contingency plan template is a tool used to replicate, streamline, and standardize the process of creating such plans depending on the type of situation.
- For more resources on emergency response and contingency planning, see “Free Risk Management Plan Templates.”
- Enable resilient models to mitigate risks, reinforce crisis management and ensure business continuity with IBM services.
Use the latter section to ensure that everyone is aware of your contingency plan, if there is an event or occurrence that triggers the need to implement your plan. Keep everyone in the loop with this easy-to-use contingency plan presentation template. Find sections for business impact analysis (BIA), recovery strategies, plan development, and testing and exercises. We’ve compiled the most useful contingency plan templates and tips on using them for various industries. Contingency plans offer organizations a proactive strategy for resuming daily functions and operations following unforeseen events.
Create a list of risks for each process
This plan focuses on mitigation strategies to minimize operational disruptions and ensure the safety of employees while maintaining business continuity. In the face of a global health crisis, a pandemic contingency plan is vital for organizations in healthcare, retail, and manufacturing. It’s kind of like a business continuity plan, but there’s one key difference. Contingency planning makes sure the whole business stays on track no matter what.
A contingency plan is a strategy that outlines how your organization will handle unexpected events that disrupt your original plans. This strategic approach is designed to identify potential risks and develop actionable response plans to mitigate disruptions caused by unforeseen disasters and escalating problems. Get step-by-step instructions to create an effective contingency plan, so if the unexpected happens, your team can spring into action and get things back on track. Although the terms contingency plan and business continuity are often used interchangeably in risk management, they’re not the same thing. To write a contingency plan, start by assessing the potential risks for your organization. Organizations create contingency plans, sometimes called a “Plan B,” to prepare for something bad that could affect the organization’s ability to function.
Each person on your team has a very particular skill set, and it would be difficult to manage team responsibilities if more than one person left at the same time. The timeline of your response (i.e., immediate things to do vs. longer-term things to do) During the risk assessment phase, assign each risk a severity and likelihood—we recommend using high, medium, and low. If you aren’t sure who should be included in your brainstorming session, create a stakeholder analysis map to identify who should be involved. Whether a power surge damages your servers or a hacker attempts to infiltrate your network, you’ll want to have an emergency response in place.
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This means you can make an educated decision when budgeting contingency reserves into project plans and yearly budgets. PMI uses the following risk exposure assessment table — also called the probability impact matrix — to evaluate … the probability and impact of potential risks. Then you should have a supply chain contingency plan in place, in case of unexpected production or shipping delays. Imagine that a key team member unexpectedly leaves the project.
Without that backup, the team might have to recreate the entire website from memory or build a website from scratch. The vast majority of failed projects and bankrupt companies had a plan and followed it. Keep your data protected and your business moving with IBM Storage FlashSystem—cyber-resilient storage with intelligent automation and lightning-fast recovery to stay one step ahead of disruption.
Map out essential processes
The key components of a contingency plan include risk assessment, response strategies, roles and responsibilities, communication plans, and recovery procedures. It’s great if you’ve created contingency plans for all the risks you found, but make sure you’re constantly monitoring for new risks. While contingency planning helps you stay ready, a crisis management plan deals with the unexpected to keep the business afloat.
contingency plan examples
To do that, your management team needs a clear understanding of the project’s status at all times. The best time to start acting is before a catastrophic event that puts your entire project or business at risk. A contingency plan only works if it’s used when things go wrong—and that means that everyone in your organization knows to reach for the plan in times of trouble. Every business process is vulnerable to some sort of emergency or human error and requires a solid risk management process. For instance, you might have a particular threshold beyond which you’ll move to a contingency plan — such as the severity level of a natural disaster.
Steps
- Organizations build contingency plans to help them face a variety of threats, including natural disasters, unplanned downtime, data loss, network breaches and sudden shifts in customer demand.
- Use this simple contingency plan template to help your organization return to daily operations after unforeseen circumstances.
- The most obvious risk of not having a contingency plan is the potential for financial losses.
- Having your business contingency plan on paper is an excellent place to start.
Once you’ve written your contingency plan, it’s time to share it with senior management so you get approval before the plan becomes official company policy. If the cost of mitigation is also much lower than the cost of cleaning up the mess after the fact, then you’ve found a great candidate for a risk that warrants creating a contingency plan. It would be too time consuming to create a disaster recovery plan for each risk you’ve identified. Hopefully, I’ve managed to convince you that it’s important to make a contingency plan for your business. When disaster strikes, a contingency plan can help your business respond intentionally, mitigate any losses, and get back on track as quickly as possible.
As part of that contingency plan, describe the risk and brainstorm what your team will do if the risk comes to pass. A BIA will help you predict what impact a specific risk could have on your business and, in turn, the response you and your team should take if that risk were to occur. Let’s face it—no matter how much planning goes into running a business, unexpected events can still throw everything off course.
Get up-to-date insights into cybersecurity threats and their financial impacts on organizations. IBM Maximo Application Suite is an integrated cloud-based solution that helps businesses respond quickly to changing conditions. The managers of a large social network know of a cybersecurity risk in their app that they are working to fix. What if your core business was so critical to your customers that downtime of even just a few hours could result in millions of dollars in lost revenue? Plans should be tested at least once annually, and new risk assessments performed.
Share the plans
A solid contingency plan template should cover risk assessments, action steps, communication protocols, and assigned roles. A contingency plan contingency plan example template is a pre-built framework that helps you outline steps to address unexpected disruptions or emergencies. This flexibility ensures your contingency plan stays relevant and effective, giving your business the confidence to handle disruptions smoothly.
See comprehensive collections of best practice templates related to this topic. Access a complete set of resources aimed at maximizing safety, quality, and operational excellence, including detailed guides, related templates, and real-world use cases. It’s essential for ensuring your team can respond quickly, reduce downtime, and maintain operational continuity. Make the template as user-friendly as possible by incorporating clear instructions and QR codes. This proactive approach not only safeguards your business but also strengthens your overall resilience.