H1N1 Contingency Planning - Are you ready?
The Auditor General of Canada, Sheila Fraser, has taken the federal government to task over its lack of preparedness to deal with disasters; she emphasized the need to plan ahead. The problem is that planning for a disaster that no one can predict is problematic, if not futile.
Dealing with a disaster is one thing; how to plan ahead is another issue. Generally, organizations in this situation are often faced with a lack of consensus around how to organize themselves to undertake disaster planning, with a lack of a structured way to sort through the clutter of ”what-ifs” for something which is not imminent, and with how to create a focused organization that relies on contributions from throughout the organization.
Scenario Planning has a role to play in Disaster Planning. Scenarios are one of the best ways to wrestle with the uncertainties and complexities that emerge from the issues addressed above.
It starts with engaging stakeholders in thoughtful analysis and dialogue about the situation, accepting of different possible futures, identifying and creating buy-in for strategic investments to prepare the organization, and being able to quickly understand and react to situations as they unfold.
