contingency planning
Preparing for emergencies
Contingency planning is preparing for possible future events, especially unwanted ones.
Organizations develop contingency plans for emergencies, system failures, or market disruptions: The hospital's contingency planning saved lives when the power grid failed.
The practice assumes that things can go wrong and aims to have responses ready before they do.
- evacuation plansOrganized emergency exit protocols
- disaster drillPracticed response to catastrophe
- worst caseMost unfavorable possibility
- foresightAbility to anticipate futures
- threat assessmentEvaluating potential for harm
hope for the best · emergency procedures · risk assessment · crisis management · business continuity · risk mitigation · belt and suspenders · resource allocation · decision trees · redundancy · preparedness · backup systems · Murphy's Law · failsafe · rainy day fund · recovery operations · scenario · prioritization
- operationsoperation, operations, military operation, joint operation, workflow
- Planning Skillsforesight, preparation, organization, strategy, anticipation
- speculationconjecture, guess, guessing, speculation, hypothesis
- NATOArticle 5, military alliance, mutual defense, alliance, North Atlantic Treaty Organization
- Strategic AnalysisSWOT analysis, threat assessment, risk assessment, decision tree, game theory
- strategic managementstrategic objectives, strategic management, corporate strategy, business strategy, mission
contingency planningcrisis response
Action taken during emergencies
damage control · firefighting · emergency response · cleanup operations · picking up the pieces
contingency planningimprovisation
Spontaneous, unplanned creation
winging it · spontaneous reaction · shooting from the hip · playing it by ear · disorganization
contingency planningrecklessness
Careless disregard for danger
complacency · willful blindness · head in the sand · willful ignorance · negligence