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Common Emergency Plan Errors

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Many emergency and disaster recovery plans contain common errors. Most emergency plans that fail have some of these flaws.

Contingency Planning

An effective Emergency Plan has accurate directions for quickly assessing damage, quickly dispatching resources to needed locations and minimizing congestion. To provide effective emergency plans:

•  Regularly re-examine all aspects of emergency preparedness
•  Regularly re-define the role of emergency operating centers
•  Regularly re-train employees
•  Regularly test employee capabilities
•  Ensure emergency drills closely depict real-life crises
•  Regularly update contingency plans

Four key flaws in emergency plans are:

1. Contingency Plan is not organized
2. Contingency Plan format is too complex
3. Contingency Plan is generic or too detailed
4. Alternates are not identified or not accurate

1. Emergency Plan is not organized

Poorly documented disaster planning may be worse than useless. In a crisis, people waste valuable time searching for critical information.

Does your contingency plan provide essential information for each crisis? Or is it just a binder of jumbled information from many sources?

•  Assemble essential information for the right people in the right sequence
•  Organize information in a logical flow of how it will be used in a crisis
•  Keep information that is used only for planning in a separate binder

The size of your company determines how many documents are needed. A small organization in one location may only need a single document that contains all emergency information. A large company with multiple locations needs an executive document, a company plan, sub-plans and many supportive documents.

•  Executive summary

Your executive summary should be a concise guide that informs upper management what to do immediately in a disaster. Executive summaries can spell out who is responsible for what and should include removable copies of key information pages that show current telephone numbers and alternate contact information that may needed in a disaster.

•  Emergency plan

Your emergency plan should provide key policies about generic disasters. Executives can also use it to plan long-term recovery efforts. An emergency plan should create clear pictures of how the organization should respond to generic disasters.

2. Emergency Plan is too complex

Electronic emergency plans can become a problem in a disaster.

•  What knowledge is required to access the emergency planning documents?
•  Will computers be accessible to those who need them - in a power failure?
•  Will the applications that access and view the plans be running?
•  Will current versions of the documents be available?
•  Will emergency staff know how to find what they need in documents?
•  Have key people rehearsed the plans?

Store off-site, easily accessible paper copies of current emergency plans.

3. Emergency Plan is too generic or too detailed

A generic crisis management plan may look good on paper. But a generic plan based on false or incomplete assumptions will fail in a disaster. Although a generic plan may be a useful planning tool, have it carefully scrutinized by all stakeholders and regularly test it to ensure that it works.

•  Overly detailed plans can cause delays during a disaster
•  The true “worst case” scenario may not have been identified
•  Emergency plans document critical functions in too much detail

A real disaster will rarely match an anticipated disaster, and any plan will have serious gaps. Therefore, focus initially on a "worst case" scenario.

4. Are alternates accurately identified?

Your disaster recovery plan can quickly be out of date, with changes in personnel, vendors and clients. Your disaster recovery plan should continually validate contact information for essential staff, and provide alternate means for reaching them should the primary contact fail.

•  In a crisis, many people will try to contact executives and managers
•  Expect networks to be jammed
•  List alternate telephone numbers, and those of alternates

Nightmare Scenario

Imagine yourself managing a major disaster recovery effort using an emergency plan with the above errors! Before that happens - check each contingency plan for these common errors and help minimize your organization’s risk - and your personal risk of losing your job. Create effective recovery plans!

Martyn Carruthers was a paramedic (Royal Navy) and served on nuclear submarines during the Cold War. He was a health physics and safety officer at nuclear power stations, and Radiation Protection Officer for the Canadian government, where he worked with industry, Public Health and Emergency Measures Organization (EMO). Martyn Carruthers founded Soulwork Systemic Coaching, a complete system of effective coaching and corporate mentorship.

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