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Mission Impossible? Planning and Preparing for Crisis 1
Author(s) -
McConnell Allan,
Drennan Lynn
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
journal of contingencies and crisis management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.007
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1468-5973
pISSN - 0966-0879
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-5973.2006.00482.x
Subject(s) - contingency plan , crisis management , contingency , preparedness , business , salience (neuroscience) , public relations , process management , political science , economics , computer security , computer science , management , linguistics , philosophy , artificial intelligence
Crisis management logic suggests that planning and preparing for crisis should be a vital part of institutional and policy toolkits. This paper explores the difficulties in translating this ideal into practice. It focuses on four key difficulties. First, crises and disasters are low probability events but they place large demands on resources and have to compete against front‐line service provision. Second, contingency planning requires ordering and coherence of possible threats, yet crisis is not amenable to being packaged in such a predictable way. Third, planning for crisis requires integration and synergy across institutional networks, yet the modern world is characterised by fragmentation across public, private and voluntary sectors. Fourth, robust planning requires active preparation through training and exercises, but such costly activities often produced a level of symbolic readiness which does not reflect operational realities. Finally the paper reflects on whether crisis preparedness is a ‘mission impossible’, even in the post‐9/11 period when contingency planning seems to be an issue of high political salience.