Crisis Management and Business Continuity Planning

About This Course

This course prepares managers and specialists to lead an organisation through a serious disruption and to build a business continuity plan that keeps critical activities running. It covers how a crisis differs from a routine incident, how decisions are made under pressure, and how continuity is planned, tested, and maintained so that people, operations, and reputation are protected.
Participants work from risk identification through response structures, continuity strategies, plan documentation, exercises, and recovery.

The emphasis is on practical arrangements an organisation can own and use, not on a theoretical framework alone. The course supports professional crisis and continuity management. It is not a substitute for legal, medical, or emergency-service advice, and it does not teach methods for causing harm or for concealing misconduct.

Course Objectives

Distinguish an incident, an emergency, and a crisis, and explain what each requires of management.
Identify critical activities, dependencies, and the impact of their interruption.
Set recovery priorities and maximum tolerable periods of disruption.
Design a crisis management structure with clear roles, escalation, and decision rights.
Prepare a business continuity plan that staff can follow under pressure.
Plan communication with staff, customers, regulators, and the public during a disruption.
Design and run a simple exercise to test the plan.
Review a disruption and improve the plan, the team, and the organisation’s readiness.

What You Will Learn

How a crisis differs from a routine incident, and when management must change how it decides
How to identify the activities that must continue or be restored first
How to judge the impact of losing people, premises, systems, or suppliers
How to set a crisis team with clear roles and escalation
How to keep a decision log and a single picture of the situation
How to choose continuity strategies that the organisation can actually resource
How to write a plan that staff can use, not only file
How to communicate with staff and external parties without speculation
How to test the plan with a structured exercise
How to turn lessons from an exercise or a real disruption into improvements

Skills You Will Gain

Crisis and incident classification
Business impact assessment
Critical-activity and dependency mapping
Recovery-priority setting
Crisis team design and activation rules
Decision logging under pressure
Continuity strategy selection
Business continuity plan structure
Crisis communication planning
Exercise design and lessons management

Why Choose Komatek Academy

Built for managers who must lead a disruption, not as a general risk-awareness seminar
Impact and response practised together, so the plan is tied to real activities
Workshops on impact assessment, a tabletop scenario, and plan contents
Clear boundary: the course strengthens lawful preparedness and does not assist concealment of failure or harm
Usable across sectors, with in-house delivery that can use the organisation’s own sites and risks

Who Should Attend

Operations, risk, and business continuity managers

Crisis and emergency management team members

Heads of department responsible for a critical activity

Corporate affairs and communications managers who speak for the organisation in a disruption

Internal auditors and compliance officers reviewing continuity arrangements

Advisers supporting an organisation to build or test a continuity plan

Course Content

MODULE 01

Crisis, Continuity and the Organisation

1. Incident, emergency, and crisis: what changes at each level

2. Business continuity as the ability to continue or resume critical activities

3. Governance: who owns crisis management and who owns the continuity plan

4. Legal, regulatory, and contractual duties at a management level

5. The link between risk management and continuity planning

6. Workshop: Classifying recent organisational disruptions and the response each required

MODULE 02

Understanding What Must Continue

1. Critical activities and the processes that support them

2. Dependencies: people, premises, technology, suppliers, and information

3. Business impact: what fails, how quickly, and with what consequence

4. Recovery time objectives and minimum acceptable service

5. Single points of failure

6. Workshop: Completing a simple impact assessment for one critical activity

MODULE 03

Crisis Leadership and Response

1. Crisis team composition, roles, and authority

2. Activation criteria and escalation

3. Decision-making with incomplete information

4. Information management: logs, situation reports, and a single picture of events

5. Staff welfare and duty of care during a prolonged disruption

6. Workshop: Running a short tabletop scenario and recording decisions and gaps

MODULE 04

Continuity Strategies and the Plan

1. Strategies: alternate site, remote working, manual workarounds, mutual aid, and stock

2. What belongs in a usable plan: triggers, actions, contacts, and resources

3. Keeping the plan short enough to be used

4. Supplier and third-party continuity

5. Information and systems recovery at a management level

6. Workshop: Drafting the contents list and the first actions for one continuity plan

MODULE 05

Communication, Exercise and Improvement

1. Internal and external communication in a crisis

2. Spokespersons, holding statements, and consistency of message

3. Designing an exercise: discussion, tabletop, or limited live test

4. What to observe and how to capture lessons

5. Maintaining the plan: review cycle, ownership, and training

6. Capstone: Present a continuity and crisis package covering critical activities, team roles, first actions, a communication approach, and an exercise plan