Course curriculum

  • 1

    Welcome and Introduction

  • 2

    Module 1: The Rationale for Developing Critical Communication Capability®

    • Critical situations and critical communcation capability

    • Building capability into muscle memory

    • Real-world PR nightmare critical situations

    • Real-world cybersecurity critical situations

    • The evolution of critical situations and their management

    • The evolution of news sources and cycles

    • The proliferation of cybersecurity incidents

    • The upward trend in PR nightmares

    • Managing critical situations in the 'new normal'

    • Module 1 Quiz
  • 3

    Module 2: Principles of Effective Communication

    • Be authentic, know your audience, and reposition questions

    • Leverage soundbites, bridge to your points, know your message

    • Consistent, clear, concise, compelling, credible, and creative

    • The PESTLE mode of external factors that influence and constrain

    • Responding well in moments of truth

    • Staging moments of truth to improve results

    • Improving moments of truth

    • Module 2 Quiz
  • 4

    Module 3: The Critical Communication Capability® framework

    • A shared approach, clear model, agile continual improvement, and regular practice and drills

    • A shared approach, collaboration versus coordination, and tension objectives

    • The CCC® Framework

    • Phases of critical situation handling and identifying and making capability improvements

    • Module 3 Quiz
  • 5

    Module 4: Critical Communication Capability® result areas

    • Brand and reputation, health of ecosystem, legal and compliance, and financial performance

    • Balancing and avoiding impacts across result areas

    • Brand and reputation

    • Monitoring and tracking using indicators

    • Health of the ecosystem

    • Monitoring and tracking ecosystem health

    • Legal and compliance

    • Tracking legal and compliance results

    • Financial performance

    • Monitoring financial performance

    • Managing result area impact across all critical situation handling phases

    • Module 4 Quiz
  • 6

    Module 5: Critical Communication Capability® phases

    • The standing and response phases

    • The aftermath phase and phase boundaries

    • Moments of truth in all phases

    • The standing phase and the CCC® self-assessment

    • Standing phase capability indicators - identified leads and roles

    • Identified leads and roles

    • Critical situation exercises

    • Conducting and debriefing on critical situation exercises

    • Communications channels

    • The initial and ongoing response sub-phases

    • Designating spokespeople

    • The ongoing response review cycle

    • Feedback monitoring and go/no-go on public disclosure

    • Communications channels

    • Internal and external communications moments of truth and best practices

    • The aftermath phase

    • Performance in the aftermath phase

    • The ready post-incident team in the aftermath phase

    • Moments of truth in the aftermath phase and the ready team

    • The post-mortem process

    • Post-mortem agenda checklist

    • Applied learnings

    • Channel monitoring

    • The five principal roles in critical situations

    • Critical situation role readiness and the IT or operations and customer outreach leads

    • The communications lead and the chief legal officer

    • The role of the C-suite in critical situation handling

    • Module 5 Quiz
  • 7

    Module 6: Critical Communication Capability® resources

    • People, process, information, and technology

    • Resource areas and capability indicators

    • Potential and desired states for capability indicators

    • People resources

    • Process resources

    • Information resources

    • Technology resources

    • The CCC® self-assessment

    • Module 6 Quiz
  • 8

    Module 7: Critical Communication Capability® levers

    • Force field analysis and best practices for identifying improvements

    • Sample force field analysis

    • Adopting best practices

    • Agile continual improvement

    • Regular practice and drills

    • Media training, mock press conferences and interviews, fishbowl discussions, and Toyota Kata

    • Module 7 Quiz
  • 9

    Module 8 Exam prep and next steps

    • What we covered

    • Review of the rationale for critical communication capability®

    • A review of the four elements of critical communication capability®

    • The CCC® Framework

    • Next steps on your CCC® journey