Author: John Carter

Contingency plan examples: A step-by-step guide to help your business prepare for the unexpected

In the 1990s, dozens of studies showed Contingency Management is a helpful intervention for increasing abstinence among individuals with cocaine use disorder. Several empirical questions linger, however, about how long CM needs to be delivered before the abstinence-related benefits it offers will carry on without the rewards (or negative consequences) in place. In the first stage of the contingency planning process, stakeholders brainstorm a list of potential risks the company faces and conduct risk analysis on each one. Team members discuss possible risks, analyze the risk impact of each one and propose courses of action to increase their overall preparedness.

You want to make sure you have all the necessary information before drafting your plan, so this step should be the longest. Ending treatment needs to be paired with relapse prevention strategies to reduce the risk of relapse. The value of the vouchers starts low, increasing gradually with repeated good behavior. The vouchers return to their initial values if the patient fails a drug test.

Others object on philosophical grounds – that individuals should not be paid money to abstain. When business operations are disrupted by a negative event, good contingency planning gives an organization’s response structure and discipline. During a crisis, decision-makers and employees often feel overwhelmed by the pile-up of events beyond their control, and having a thorough backup plan helps reestablish confidence and return operations to normal. Good contingency plans prioritize the risks an organization faces, delegate responsibility to members of the response teams and increase the likelihood that the company will make a full recovery after a negative event. In sum, contingency management interventions have substantive evidence ofefficacy in positively modifying a variety of patient behaviours, andadaptations of these techniques to a variety of problem behaviours may furtherincrease their relevance and widespread use.

This post will explain what contingency planning is, outline the steps you can follow to create your own plan, and give examples that you can use for inspiration. Researchers began studying Contingency Management (CM) as an intervention for alcohol use disorder in the 1960s. Also during this time, other more involved treatment approaches capitalized on these operant conditioning principles present in CM, while also incorporating ways to enhance coping skills and sober social activities, such as the Community Reinforcement Approach (CRA). If someone has both a substance use disorder and a mental health disorder, they have a dual diagnosis.

Contingency plan examples: A step-by-step guide to help your business prepare for the unexpected

Once you’ve created your plans, distribute them to key stakeholders in each scenario, so everyone understands what they are responsible for and can prepare ahead of time. This first step is the most important aspect of your planning, as it sets the tone for why your plans need to exist in the first place. Treatment is less effective if a person is uninterested in a particular reward. Walker (1990) presents an overview of token systems and combining such procedures with other interventions in the classroom.[10] He relates the comprehensiveness of token systems to the child’s level of difficulty. 5 min read – Governments around the world are taking strides to increase production and use of alternative energy to meet energy consumption demands. 3 min read – Organizations with strategic sourcing mindsets look beyond price and cost savings-centered supplier selection initiatives.

As mentioned above, your business will likely be impacted by different things at different times, so it’s always important to review plans and ensure they still relate to your needs. For example, maybe you plan to do quarterly reviews and training so new hires, and existing employees, are all on the same page. Take two to three weeks to brainstorm the scenarios you’re going to create plans for. Spend as much time as possible speaking to the necessary stakeholders to understand their ideas about the scenarios and how they’d like them dealt with. You’ll want to conduct probability assessments and market research to understand if your competitors have ever dealt with something similar.

As you never want to be caught in a challenging situation, being prepared is the best thing you can do to ensure your business continues to succeed, regardless of whatever happens along the way. These scenarios aren’t necessarily going to happen, but if there is a possibility that they’ll affect your business, you’re prepared if they do. Although their names vary by few letters, business continuity and contingency plans are different concepts. Continuity is the ability of your business to continue functioning after an incident that has disrupted operations occurs. A contingency plan is an action plan that goes into place if an incident were to happen. Regardless of the scenario, it’s essential to prepare for everything, and contingency planning helps you do so.

Having executive support from the start ensures the plan put forth is approved and also can motivate those at the department level to buy-in as well. For example, if your business operates out of a storefront, keeping your storefront up and running is a critical area of your business’s success. Maybe you launch a new product that attracts more interest than you thought, and you need to deal with higher in-store traffic and a lack of products to satisfy the market. While it is a positive situation that will draw in more revenue, it can still have negative repercussions for your business if you don’t deal with it when it happens. Contingency planning is a proactive process of creating a strategy to help you prepare for any scenario that can affect your business, regardless of the likelihood of its occurrence. Many organizations exists for board certified behavior analysts using contingency management around the world.

You can also share what you’ve created with your stakeholders and iterate on what you have based on their feedback. As planning is always an involved process, you may be wondering how much time you should devote to each step. Once you’ve identified the critical operations of your business, you’ll want to conduct a scenario assessment to identify situations that will affect these functions and put stress on your day-to-day operations. Identifying these areas helps you move on to the next step as you begin brainstorming possible scenarios that can impact them. To ensure your business is prepared for everything, it’s crucial to understand how to create a contingency plan. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown, more than ever, the importance of being prepared with a contingency plan for the unexpected, especially when it comes to business continuity.

Empowering the digital-first business professional in the foundation model era

These are complex situations that CM has been shown to handle effectively. Here are some important definitions, best practices and strong examples to help you build contingency plans for whatever your business faces. Another positive aspect of contingency management is that it’s versatile. It can be used to encourage clients to avoid drugs or alcohol as well as to show up for their scheduled appointments, participate in group therapy, or demonstrate healthy living activities like participation in yoga or physical fitness training. Habits, compulsions, patterns of behavior— read any type of overview about alcohol or drug addiction and you’re likely to come across these terms referring to key aspects of addiction development and progression.

1. By combining the power of artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT) and advanced analytics, it enables organizations to maximize the performance of their most valuable assets, lengthen their lifespans and minimize costs and downtime.
2. Contingency planning is also different from crisis management, as it is not a reaction to something that has already happened but more so a plan for if and when something may happen.
3. Not only do patients stand to gain by the introduction of contingencymanagement but so do providers.
4. To ensure your business is prepared for everything, it’s crucial to understand how to create a contingency plan.
5. Lott &Jencius14 foundthat reimbursement rates substantially increased when contingency managementwas introduced to adolescents who misused substances.
6. CM also has strong empirical support as an conjunctive intervention to increase psychosocial treatment and medication adherence.

A resident who passes a drug test or has a therapeutic breakthrough receives a gift card that triggers their brain’s reward system, encouraging them to progress further so they receive more gifts. You can think of this stage as similar to a risk assessment, but the possibilities are positive and negative. It may be helpful to meet with people who work in these critical areas and understand what they think may cause interruptions to their job duties and barriers to their success. Ask them how they feel situations will impact them and how they would deal with each scenario. Contingency plans can significantly impact whether your business can achieve continuity. Being able to react and take action during a crisis can dictate whether or not your business can emerge from the other side and continue normal business operations.

A contingency plan should be looked at as a living document and updated as needed. Your business needs will change over time and so will its obstacles and risks. Once you’ve come up with a desired plan of action, it’s time to get approval from stakeholders and management.

Contingency Planning vs. Risk Management

Like adults, Contingency Management (CM) promotes benefit in adolescents as well. Importantly, this CM benefit may be provided over and above the empirically supported combination of Motivational Enhancement Therapy and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (MET/CBT). Unique to adolescent CM approaches is that parents are typically trained in the rationale and delivery of CM interventions.

A positive report comes from the introductionof contingency management into standard practice in substance misuse treatmentprogrammes in NewYork.13 Asindividuals were reinforced for attending groups, group sizes and participantmorale increased, along with provider morale. Lott &Jencius14 foundthat reimbursement rates substantially increased when contingency managementwas introduced to adolescents who misused substances. One area in which contingency management has widespread potential benefitsis individual retention in treatment.

Another popular approach based on CM for alcoholism is the community reinforcement approach and family training (CRAFT) model, which uses self-management and shaping techniques. A vast amount of empirical evidence indicates the efficacy of contingencymanagement for treating substance use disorders. In thecontingency management group, individuals earned at least one draw with achance of winning a prize ranging from US$1 to 100 in value for eachstimulant-negative sample submitted, and number of draws earned increased withweeks of consecutive abstinence. About half of the sample were recruited frompsychosocial (non-methadone) and half from methadone clinics. In thepsychosocialclinics,3contingency management significantly enhanced retention in treatment, with 49%of the contingency management group completing 12 weeks of treatmentv.