Crisis Management: 8 Steps For Formulating Your Decisions

The following are some important steps in the decision making process. Each step may be supported by different tools and techniques, with crisis management software being key to coordinated response and a fast resolution.

Step 1: Identification of the purpose of the decision

In this step, the problem is thoroughly analysed. Good preparation is key for crisis events. An emergency response planning tool will allow you to pre-plan actions that must be taken for various situations.

Step 2: Information gathering

In the process of solving the problem, you will have to gather as much information related to the factors and stakeholders involved in the problem. It’s important to have a central cloud-based location to store this information.

Step 3: Principles for judging the alternatives

In this step, the baseline criteria for judging the alternatives should be set up.

Step 4: Brainstorm and analyse the different choices

For this step, brainstorming to list down all the ideas is the best option. Before the idea generation step, it is vital to understand the causes of the problem and prioritization of causes.

Step 5: Evaluation of alternatives

Use your judgement principles and decision-making criteria to evaluate each alternative.

Step 6: Select the best alternative

Once you go through from Step 1 to Step 5, this step is easy. In addition, the selection of the best alternative is an informed decision since you have already followed a methodology to derive and select the best alternative.

Step 7: Execute the decision

Convert your decision into a plan or a sequence of activities. Execute your plan by yourself or with the help of subordinates. Coordinate your response using forms, tasks, logs, and status boards with a crisis management tool like D4H Incident Management.

Step 8: Evaluate the results

Evaluate the outcome of your decision. See whether there is anything you should learn and then correct in future decision making. After-action reporting software will enable you to review all decisions made, and analyse incident trends to better prepare for future events and introduce preventative measures.