Communication Governance

Crisis Communication Template

Communicate during an incident, outage, or reputational event.

When to use

Any active crisis requiring stakeholder communication.

Audience: Affected stakeholders.

Template structure

  1. Step 1
    What We Know

    Verified facts only.

  2. Step 2
    What We're Doing

    Current actions.

  3. Step 3
    What We Don't Know Yet

    Be explicit about gaps.

  4. Step 4
    Next Update

    When the audience will hear from you again.

Example

At 9:42 AM PT we detected degraded performance...

Best practices

  • Speed beats polish in crisis.
  • Never speculate.
  • Commit to a next-update time and meet it.

Customization guidance

Treat this template as a starting structure, not a script. Adapt the section order to match how your audience expects information — for example, lead with the recommendation for time-pressed executives, or with context when writing to less-familiar stakeholders. Replace placeholder language with specifics from your situation; substitute jargon with the vocabulary your reader actually uses; and shorten or expand sections based on the decision weight of the communication. The structure exists to ensure you have covered what matters, not to constrain how you communicate.

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