IncidentManagement

INCIDENT MANAGEMENT

Your prescriptive Emergency Response drills have helped with the predictable aspects of the dangerous or disruptive event, but there are complexities that only real-time decisions can address. Incident Management (IM) is about having the right infrastructure in place to make the decisions in a controlled and confident pre-planned manner. It’ s about having the right roles and responsibilities ready to deploy, and trained people in place to fulfil them – also (and crucially) having the information you’ll need at your fingertips. The people issues are the primary concern, but you also want to come out of the incident with a functioning and stable business.

IM means thinking through, in advance:

· where your team will go to manage the incident

· how it will work together as a team

· agendas, processes and guidelines to make your team effective

· an infrastructure of equipment and practical preparations

· what each team player should do and when

· where the team can go for the help it needs (+ contingency arrangements)

· who are the key contacts to call upon in different circumstances

· links with internal & external stakeholders

· contingency plans for likely situations the business may face

· what tools you’ll need to support effective and accountable action

· how the incident and its business impact should be reported up the chain.

IM is about having an established picture (obtained via Business Impact Analysis) of what are your business’ key dependencies, and a process for recognising what the business has lost so the management effort can focus on understanding and coping with damage that the incident has done. It’s about understanding the severity of the situation, and having the right level of management making the decisions. Effective IM ensures ‘horses for courses’ in terms of deploying the right skills and specialisms – and that the right priorities are applied to deploying your available effort where it most helps the business. Its about acting with a confidence emanating from knowing its all been thought through in advance and practised through realistic exercising. It’s about being calm in the face of a threatening situation; noting you can afford to be calm when you know there are well-founded and tested plans in place.

How can MMA help? By guiding your preparations for an Incident Management process that delivers all of the above. MM can help you:

· understand what is needed

· define and prepare IM plans that are tailored to your individual circumstances

· put in place the wherewithal of what you need to implement the plans

· help you test and hone your plans through facilitated exercises

· help keep everything up to date.

IM takes you through to the point where people are safe and the business situation stabilised. The next question is whether the business has stabilised in an acceptably profitable condition, which leads us to the next Phase of BCM: Business Recovery.