EN ISO 22361:2022 PDF

Overview

EN ISO 22361:2022 (ISO 22361:2022) - Security and resilience - Crisis management - Guidelines - provides practical guidance to help organizations plan, establish, maintain, review and continually improve a strategic crisis management capability. It is a guidance standard aimed at top management and those acting under their direction, helping organizations of any size or sector to identify, manage and recover from crises while acknowledging interdependencies with related disciplines.

Key topics

The standard structures its guidance around core topics and practical processes, including:

• Context, core concepts and principles (Clause 4) - nature and characteristics of crises, origins, readiness and foundational principles such as governance, strategy, risk management, decision-making, communication, ethics and learning.
• Building capability (Clause 5) - frameworks for leadership, structure, culture, competence and a crisis management process covering:
  • Anticipation and assessment
  • Prevention and mitigation
  • Preparedness
  • Response
  • Recovery
  • Continual improvement
• Crisis leadership (Clause 6) - roles, responsibilities, core leadership skills and responder well‑being for sustainable crisis response.
• Strategic decision‑making (Clause 7) - addressing complexity, dilemmas, decision delay/avoidance and techniques for effective crisis decisions.
• Crisis communication (Clause 8) - preparation, reputation and stakeholder management, communication teams and spokespeople, consistent messaging, media and social media considerations.
• Training, validation and learning (Clause 9) - competence development, exercises, validation methods and post‑event learning to improve resilience.

Practical applications

EN ISO 22361:2022 is oriented to real‑world use and supports practical implementation:

• Helps top management design and govern an organization‑level crisis capability.
• Guides crisis teams and leaders on decision‑making, roles and sustainable response practices.
• Informs communication teams on pre‑crisis planning, media strategy and social media risk/benefit management.
• Supports risk, continuity and security practitioners in integrating crisis processes with preparedness, exercises and learning activities.
• Useful for regulators, auditors and consultants assessing an organization’s strategic crisis readiness.

Related standards and disciplines

EN ISO 22361:2022 acknowledges relationships and interdependencies with other disciplines - for example, business continuity, emergency management, risk management and organizational resilience - while remaining focused on strategic crisis management guidance.

Keywords: EN ISO 22361:2022, ISO 22361, crisis management guidelines, crisis leadership, crisis communication, training and exercises, strategic crisis capability, security and resilience.