If your organization does not have an issues-management program, you may need some crisis management training. 
Issues do not exist in a vacuum.  In very simple terms, issues arise in the public debate.  In that debate there are opinion leaders and opinion followers.  Issues management is all about your relationship to those leaders.  Those leaders will shape and influence the public policies that will make or break you.  So it is absolutely critical that you know what they expect of you.

How To Manage Issues Before They Manage You is a one-hour professional-group presentation given by David Kirk, APR, Fellow PRSA.  The centerpiece of that presentation is this series of four detailed charts that detail the process through which issues arise, explode and resolve and shows, for each of the three major phases of an issue:

• Who is involved in the issue in each phase
• How those involved are structured around the issue
• How the issue is being expressed
• The actions they are taking
• The impact those actions are having

In each phase, the charts also lay-out a communciation plan that includes:

• Target audiences
• Communication principles
• Goals
• Strategies
• Key Messages
• Tactics
• Measurement