What is a Contingency Plan?
A contingency plan is the pre-built response that executes if an identified risk fires — designed calmly in advance, triggered by a defined condition, funded by contingency reserve. Its cousin the fallback plan is plan C: what you do if the contingency itself fails.
Contrast with a workaround, which is improvised for risks nobody identified. Contingency = rehearsed; workaround = jazz. The trigger definition is the underrated part: a plan with no trigger fires late or never.
Worked example
Risk: the specialty glass façade may fail wind-tunnel certification. Contingency plan, built months early: pre-qualified alternate supplier, adapted mullion design on the shelf, and a trigger — "if certification isn't passed by March 1, switch." March 1 arrives without a pass; the switch executes in a day because every decision except the date had already been made.