Contingency Planning

Develop the contingency Planning and Policy- It is crucial for the organization to pre-determine policy and procedure if the contingency plan is put into action for the outpatient surgery center. The contingency plan is crucial in reaction to a crisis or detrimental changes, leaving little time to adapt. The organization will need to forecasts potential crisis for the outpatient surgery center while writing policies and guidelines for if when the contingency plan is activated.

The planning process begins with a situation analysis of the external and internal forces affecting the organization.  This examination helps identify and diagnose issues and problems and may bring to the surface alternative goals and plans for the firm.  Next, the advantages and disadvantages of these goals and plans should be evaluated against one another.  Once a set of goals and a plan have been selected, implementation involves communicating the plan to employees, allocating resources, and making certain that other systems such as rewards and budgets are supporting the plan.  Finally, planning requires instituting control systems to monitor progress toward the goals.

Organizations plan according to the changes in the environment. Planning for organizations 25 years ago was stable. This was due to the fact; organizations during that time frame remain essentially the same. There was no need to be worried about a volatile economy, or market. In the past organizations didn’t have to primarily plan for the uncertainty, as they have to do now. They generally planned for making profits and understanding how to enlarge

This includes development of written plans and procedures to ensure critical operations are maintained. Preparedness includes identification of essential supplies and actions, critical positions, specific roles, responsibilities, orders of succession and delegation of specific authorities, and communication. The most important aspect of emergency planning is for the safety of the staff during an emergency. One or more secure location should be identified for staff during an emergency. Communication methods must be identified and tested between locations. Mutual aid agreements and emergency aspects of vendor contracts should also be reviewed as part of this process. It is also very important to exercise all sections of your plan (PublicRescourceOrg,

As the responsible person in charge of the launch of this new program; I would make adjustments but only to focus on “Monitoring Outcomes and Making Real-Time Adjustments”. One of the key principles is redundancy. Managers need to help the team recognize and accept the need to adapt plans in real time. As a result, managers should build capabilities that enable them to adapt. These capabilities can include skills such as good environmental scanning and quick requirement and resource assessment. In today’s dynamic environment, a fixed plan is as effective as having no plan at all. The other piece is to have managers utilize information systems to capture as much data

"Common natural disasters area a leading cause of data loss…" says Bud Stoddard, AmeriVault President and CEO. Events such as the 8.3 earthquake that struck Hokkaido Japan September 25, 2003, and the firestorm in San Diego just weeks ago are just two examples of how natural disasters are devastating millions of unprepared businesses around the world. These are not the only events that must be considered, however. The terrorist attacks against the US on 9/11/01 and the biggest blackout in North American history in August 2003 are examples of man-made disasters.

A business continuity plan is highly involved, time-consuming and requires continuous updating as the environment changes. A disaster recovery plan is unique to the facility or service and should include the step by step process on how to recovery (Carrillo, 2011). A plan is just a plan unless it is exercised at regular intervals, this exercise is not only a validation of the plan’s procedures, but training for the staff before a disaster is declared (Day & Day, 2006, pg. 12; Pinta, 2011, pg.

The Planning Phase of a contingency plan is created to minimize loss and to ensure that a business critical infrastructure can continue normal operations in the event of a disaster. According to The NIST a contingency planning refers to interim measures to recover information system services after a disruption (Swanson et al. 2010, p. ES-1). Prior to creating a plan several question should be address.

Through this course, I have learned that the main concept key to the overall success of emergency management is planning. The contingency planning involves key steps that have to be undertaken by the stakeholders identified in the scheme to prevent and respond to emergencies if they occur. The planning process is important it helps the stakeholders to respond fast and efficiently by knowing beforehand what to do to prevent the emergency from escalating and minimize its adverse effects if the emergency occurs. Regarding my professional development, the contingency planning is essential because it coordinates with my professional development and helps me to determine priorities and key steps that I have to undertake in the course of my work

When a crisis arises unexpectedly it places an organization in a precarious situation that jeopardizes the reputation of the company, the brands, key stakeholders as well as the employees. This has become even more critical in recent years as media outlets are no longer the only source of reporters, anyone with a cell phone equipped with a camera can report a developing crisis. For this reason, it is paramount that businesses in the modern era have an emergency plan in place before a crisis develops. A crisis is going to present numerous challenges even with a plan; not having a plan in place at all will drastically increase the odds of the crisis escalating to a point that it no longer is manageable. The intent of creating an emergency plan ahead of time is to be as prepared as possible to identify a developing crisis, manage the crisis and move beyond the crisis. There are a multitude of components that go into an effective emergency management plan from communication, to establishing a team, training key stakeholders as well as communicating internally and externally. In the midst of a crisis, there will not be sufficient time to bring everyone involved up to the level of proficiency required to deal with the developing crisis. For this reason, it is vital that all individuals who will be involved in managing the crisis have been properly trained and a robust emergency plan is in place. In some cases not

Business continuity is the process by which an organization can ensure its recovery and return to normal operations after a disrupting event (Peltier, 2014). The actual actions which the organizations execute are contained in the disaster recovery plan, which is based on information gathered from the continuity process. Although both of these topics are incredibly important to the survival of an organization, many organizations take shortcuts in the planning process. Some common pitfalls in the continuity planning process include poor questionnaires, poorly timed interviews, poorly recorded interviews, and lack of proper preventive controls (Peltier, 2014). Issues on the disaster recovery plans typically include where backup

A business contingency plan is a back-up plan which will be instituted in case the original plan should not be successful. The purpose of the plan is to make it possible

Schools that fail to plan, plan to fail when a crisis occurs. Planning is a “dynamic process in which both short and long term strategy can be adjusted in response to any contingency” (Reagan, 2014, p. 52). The goal of a response effort is to mitigate damage, regain control and re-establish security as quickly as possible (Reagan, 2014). Command structure, assignment of responsibilities and communication are some of the priorities of planning. A clear delineation of responsibilities within the chain of command requires considerable thought about the personal and professional attributes of the individuals involved. Therefore, one must use wisdom in how responsibilities are delegated. Keeping in mind not everyone will respond as expected in a crisis, and it is important to identify weakness prior to a crisis (Marinelli, 2013).

Any organization that does not have plans for the future will always be at the risk of collapsing. The plans of any organization are the ones that trigger it to make some changes that will help it face any challenges that may be encountered in the future. There are those challenges that an organization may face in future such as competition from a similar organization that may come up with similar services or products that the organization is offering and yet make them better. Due to this, the company has to have plans for improvement that may help take it to the next level that will enable it to compete effectively with other organizations. Therefore, there are three categories of improvement that any organization may have and ones that may help the same organization to improve and be better (Harrington, 2007).

Contingency planners are now asserting that contingency planning is a value-added component that can be a competitive advantage in the marketplace as well a means of helping organizations save money. Processes that are deeply analyzed in terms of continuity will usually be more secure, and new ways of working may emerge to help streamline operations. Contingency planning can be useful when forging alliances with external organizations or during acquisition phases. Contingency planning should be part of an organization’s quality cycle as well. “Business continuity and disaster recovery have gained somewhat in the eyes of top corporate management since the start of the 1990s. As the industry has slowly evolved from what could almost have been called a ‘black art’ to something starting to resemble a disciplined science, basic business principles have begun to become increasingly relevant” (Rothstein, 2003, p. 1).