“The secret of crisis management is not good vs. bad, it’s preventing the bad from getting worse.” – Andy Gilman
The unexpected, the unplanned and the unanticipated represent a troika that can impinge on any domain at any time, reinforcing the idea of a random universe. Crisis situations, for instance, may emerge from the proverbial scratch, prompting crisis managers to develop and implement the outlines of a nuanced response. Crisis situations could therefore be issues that bear potential to disrupt a routine, or a set of articulated processes that comprise the mainstream in, for example, modern industry, commerce, trade networks, and more.
- What is Issue Management Response?
The response to such disruption must find formulation, articulation and representation set to a definite time-frame. The nature, expanse and tenor of the response must match the extent of disruption; hence, managers may choose to frame a response that operates through multiple stages. In addition, acts of response formulation must find expression that remains appropriate to the idea of a successful resolution. Therefore, issue management response could be defined as “an anticipatory, strategic management process that helps organizations to detect and respond appropriately to emerging trends or changes in the socio-political environment.”
- SOPs through Flowcharts
Tools and protocols, such as standard operating procedures and clear sets of reporting requirements, when implemented through flowcharts can assist organizations to author a competent, appropriate issue management response. Flowcharts serve as guidelines in this context, allowing organizations to analyze the core issues that may animate a crisis or power an adverse situation. Various elements of the standard operating procedure could find representation inside flowcharts, thereby coalescing into an appropriate instance of a graded issue management response. Additionally, the flow diagram could emerge as a site of exploration that encourages organizations to innovate in such matters, and devise bespoke solutions that address different aspects of an emerging crisis situation.
- Analyzing Problems
A deep-dive analysis of a problem (or sets thereof) could enable better stances and outcomes in crisis management initiatives. Trouble-shooters may fashion a sequence of flow diagrams designed to analyze the roots and manifestation of an ongoing disruption. Different segments of the flowchart could portray multiple aspects of the analysis, thereby boosting the opportunities for a competent issue management response to take shape. Additionally, each segment of flowchart proves instrumental in implementing a micro-analysis of disruption, adding contextual information that illuminates and enriches the understanding of all stakeholders. Further, these forms of illustration could output a series of potential solutions that encourage a deeper engagement between organizations, their stakeholders and emerging/mature disruptions.
- Plurality of Analysis
Multiple lines of analysis may emerge inside flowcharts during the process of framing and implementing an issue management response. Each line may portray a definitive rationale with contours that allow organizations to analyze different modes of response; such analysis remains essential to crisis resolution and is instrumental in developing a set of relevant best practices. In addition, analysts may mold the flow diagram to frame short-term and long-term responses to a given issue/situation. Therefore, the completed flow diagram acts as a functional template that could find utility in future. Further, each line of analysis could bring forth a set of solutions that address a crisis from a different perspective; subsequently, analysts and trouble-shooters may agglomerate emerging solutions to devise a coherent instance of refined issue management response.
- Merits of the Pro-Active Stance
Pro-active responses – and the stances that enable such activity – remain central to ideation that outputs a credible issue management response. In line with this, analysts could design an interrogative stance that explores a disruption and its ancillary situations. Flowcharts could help operationalize such responses by enabling deep levels of exploration; the subsequent flows of ideation may empower organizations to frame interesting strategies that address a range of target issues. Pro-active responses must incorporate original thoughts and ideas; this could necessitate the creation of small flow diagrams that reinforce the flows which animate primary illustrations. These constituent structures may take shape through additional flowcharts that act as support images. Outcomes may include a diversified instance of issue management response, one which enables organizations to repair different forms of disruption.
- Managing Information: Part of Process
Information management is critical to processes that operate to generate an issue management response. Such activity would be significant sub-text that underlines and intersperses with the main narrative of developing a coherent response. Broadly, information management could proceed along the lines of initiating discussions and interactions with stakeholders, driving a search for causative factors and any form of new information, and interactions with media and members of the lay population. These sets of activity could find depiction inside the expanse of flowcharts, allowing analysts and trouble-shooters to develop a separate line of visual narrative. In addition, creators could integrate information management into an issue management response through connections established between layers of flowcharts undergoing development.
- Thought & Ideation
Ameliorative measures, powered by original thought and ideation, may reduce the impact registered by situations of crisis. Various methods that center on thinking-out-of-the-box may find implementation when analysts design such measures inside flowcharts. These measures may find expression as parallel segments of alternative narrative that distinguish the diagram. For instance, organizations may design and undertake localized actions that target an issue as part of framing the contours of a long-term solution. The benefits may manifest in terms of effects that evolve into micro-components of policy; these may subsequently integrate into the wider narrative of an issue management response. Additionally, designers may fashion a variety of ameliorative scenarios that could emerge as the basis of experimentation in trouble-shooting initiatives/exercises.
- Sites of Intervention
The dynamic between opportunities and concerns may emerge as a location for active intervention when organizations work to frame an issue management response. Pursuant to this, designers of flowchart may etch clear lines of delineation between perceived opportunities and emerging concerns. Such stance promotes clarity into the unfolding aspects of a situation/crisis, and empowers trouble-shooters to implement a methodical intervention. This stance also empowers organizations to accelerate the emergence of solutions, thereby generating traction in matters of framing issue management response. Further, flowcharts remain instrumental when organizations seek to assess the quality of outcomes that follow such initiatives; the lessons that emerge from such exercise could be recorded into flowcharts – thereby spotlighting the multiple utilities of these contemporary blueprints.
- To Conclude
These lines of examination and analysis can spark new perspectives on developing issue management response through the agency of flowcharts. We must remain aware that the power of human thought processes may meld with blueprints to devise innovative editions of such response. At the same time, flowcharts could be seen as enabling platforms that empower analysts/investigators with special tools to prosecute the art and science of issue management response. In addition to promoting an extended objective analysis of problematic, these diagrams also serve as paradigms of revision that can upgrade early versions of response to diversified, multi-faceted mechanisms that empower organizations to negotiate with evolving crises.
Further, the modern flow diagram may develop into a bona fide system of situation management, one that acts as a lodestone that guides organizations through the proverbial uncharted waters. Designers may work to add a range of digital functionality to these diagrams, enabling their use as stylized expressions of digital dashboards. Such innovation could enable organizations to use the flowchart as a real-time mechanism, a dynamic method of crisis containment, and a critical tool that enables the design and implementation of modern strategy.
