When you deal with projects, and you deal with issues of any type within those projects, people will state that one of them is ‘Critical’ or ‘this is a crisis’.
Now, there are strict dictionary definitions on what a crisis is, i.e.
“A crisis is a time of intense difficulty or danger”
and critical is
“Having a decisive or crucial importance in the success or failure or existence of something.”
However, when these words are used in a corporate environment, it is mainly used to massively emphasise that this is an issue or problem that the reporter wants fixing rather than it being critical for the company / enterprise or project as a whole. But it is also quite difficult to push back on as multiple people get swept up in the management of the issue.
So, I came up with what I personally class are the three definitions of critical and/or what constitutes a crisis when it comes to any company or corporation:
- This is a legal or regulatory need or law. e.g. GDPR
- There is a significant financial threat or gain to the company and/or project. e.g. Licence breach
- There is a significant or real threat to a client of the company, either in terms of reputation or financial, e.g. security breach.
And that’s it to me, as I’ve seen in many, many corporations, everything else is merely important or very important. Only those three things are truly critical. Because if any of those three goes wrong, real lives can be effected.
I know it’s a strange item for a post, but it’s something that I feel strongly about and when ever I’ve mentioned these definitions, people have nodded and used them. So if it’s of any use to people to fight crisis merchants then please feel free to use them as well.
Does anyone have any things that they would add to this list?