Issues Management, step by step
Ahead of the crisis, not during it.
- ScanMonitor complaints, regulators, campaigners and sector coverage routinely.
- AssessScore each issue for likelihood, potential harm and how fast it could move.
- AssignOne named owner per live issue, with authority to act, not just to speak.
- ActChange the practice where the criticism is right. That is the cheapest option.
- PrepareDraft positions and hold statements for issues you cannot resolve yet.
Most crises were issues that someone logged and nobody owned. The gap between knowing and acting is where reputations go.
Questions about the Issues Management poster
- What’s on the Issues Management poster?
- 5 numbered steps. Ahead of the crisis, not during it. Scan — Monitor complaints, regulators, campaigners and sector coverage routinely.; Assess — Score each issue for likelihood, potential harm and how fast it could move.; Assign — One named owner per live issue, with authority to act, not just to speak.; Act — Change the practice where the criticism is right. That is the cheapest option.; Prepare — Draft positions and hold statements for issues you cannot resolve yet.. Most crises were issues that someone logged and nobody owned. The gap between knowing and acting is where reputations go.
- Who is the Issues Management poster for?
- Issues Management belongs to the Communications & Media section rather than to a school year, because humanities is not something one grade owns. Anyone learning public relations can pin it up — a beginner, a student mid-course, or someone revising years later.
- When should you use the Issues Management poster?
- When a recurring complaint, campaign or trend has not yet become news. A wall chart earns its place by being glanceable from where the work is happening, so Issues Management belongs on the wall where that humanities work actually happens, within glancing distance, rather than filed away.
- What other posters go with Issues Management?
- Apologising Well, Crisis Response and The Holding Statement sit alongside Issues Management in the Communications & Media section. Printed together they make a wall rather than a single sheet, which is how a reference set actually gets used.Apologising WellCrisis ResponseThe Holding Statement
- Is the Issues Management poster free to download and print?
- Yes. Issues Management downloads as a free PDF with no account, no email and no watermark, like everything else in the Communications & Media section. Print as many copies as you like for a home, a classroom, a library or a tutoring group; reselling the file is the only thing the licence rules out.Read the licence
- What size does the Issues Management poster print at?
- Issues Management is a vector PDF laid out for US Letter, and prints on A4 with Fit to page — the same file, no separate download. Because every mark on it is drawn rather than photographed, it stays sharp enlarged to A3, A2 or A1 at a copy shop. Colour carries emphasis only, so a greyscale print of Issues Management loses nothing.Printing guide
Related posters
Charts that sit alongside Issues Management on the same wall.
Apologising Well
Communications & Media
Crisis Response
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The Holding Statement
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PR Ethics & Disclosure
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Internal Communication
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The Message House
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Measuring PR
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Working With Journalists
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