playbooks

home / skills / gtmagents / gtm-agents / crisis-playbooks

crisis-playbooks skill

/plugins/pr-communications/skills/crisis-playbooks

This skill guides crisis communications by providing pre-approved playbooks, templates, and escalation paths to speed consistent messaging during incidents.

npx playbooks add skill gtmagents/gtm-agents --skill crisis-playbooks

Review the files below or copy the command above to add this skill to your agents.

Files (1)
SKILL.md
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---
name: crisis-playbooks
description: Use when incidents occur and you need pre-approved workflows, templates,
  and escalation paths.
---

# Crisis Communications Playbooks Skill

## When to Use
- Service outages, security incidents, compliance/regulatory events.
- Negative press cycles or social media escalations.
- Sensitive executive/HR news requiring coordinated messaging.

## Framework
1. **Severity Matrix** – classify incidents (P1-P4) with response SLAs and approvers.
2. **Escalation Tree** – who to notify, in what order, via which channels.
3. **Message Kits** – holding statements, customer/partner/internal scripts, social/status updates.
4. **Channel Sequence** – timeline for status page, email, press, social, internal posts.
5. **Monitoring & Recovery** – tracking sentiment, rumor control, follow-up updates.

## Templates
- Incident briefing doc (facts, unknowns, owners, deadlines).
- Approval checklist for legal/security/executive signoff.
- Post-incident report with RCA, comms metrics, and improvement actions.

## Tips
- Rehearse quarterly with tabletop exercises.
- Keep localized versions for regulated markets.
- Archive every incident’s comms artifacts for compliance and learning.

---

Overview

This skill provides ready-to-use crisis communications playbooks for incidents that require fast, coordinated messaging and escalation. It combines severity classification, escalation paths, message templates, and recovery monitoring so teams can act quickly and consistently under pressure.

How this skill works

The skill inspects incident details and maps them to a severity matrix (P1–P4) to determine SLAs and required approvers. It then generates an escalation tree, selects appropriate message kits for each audience and channel, and outlines a time-sequenced channel plan. Finally, it produces checklists for approvals and post-incident reports with metrics and improvement actions.

When to use it

  • Service outages or production incidents affecting customers
  • Security incidents, data breaches, or compliance events
  • Negative press cycles or social media escalations
  • Executive, HR, or sensitive internal announcements requiring coordination
  • Regulatory inquiries or market-specific incidents needing localized messaging

Best practices

  • Classify incidents immediately using the severity matrix to set clear SLAs and approvers
  • Follow the escalation tree—notify roles in order and document who was contacted and when
  • Use message kits verbatim for initial holding statements to avoid delays and legal risk
  • Run quarterly tabletop exercises to validate playbooks and approval workflows
  • Keep localized and regulatory-compliant versions of templates for global markets

Example use cases

  • A P1 service outage: auto-generate customer-facing status updates, internal scripts, and executive brief
  • A suspected data breach: produce legal and security approval checklist plus holding statements for users and press
  • A viral negative post: create social response scripts, escalation to PR, and a monitoring plan for sentiment
  • An executive departure: coordinate internal announcement, media guidance, and stakeholder Q&A
  • Post-incident review: generate an RCA-focused report with comms metrics and recommended improvements

FAQ

How fast can the playbook produce an initial statement?

Initial holding statements and internal scripts can be generated within minutes once incident severity and owning team are identified.

Does the playbook include approval checklists?

Yes. Each high-severity path includes legal, security, and executive signoff steps and a concise approval checklist.