Contingency Planning
Management responsibilities include crisis recovery
following a civil, natural, medical or criminal emergency, in a minimum
time, with minimum disruption and at minimum cost. This requires thorough
contingency planning.
Civil, Natural, Medical and Criminal Emergencies
- Civil emergencies include
fires, gas or water leaks, and spills of chemical, biological or
radioactive materials
- Natural emergencies
include storms, floods, tsunami, forest fires and earthquakes
- Medical emergencies
include physical harm, heart attacks, exposure to toxic agents and suicide
threats
- Criminal emergencies
include bomb threats, riots, hijacking, hostage taking and terrorist activity
Overall Emergency Plan
Contingency planning should be a high priority task - a
crisis can occur at any time.
- Form a team representing all departments to develop
contingency plans.
- Gain the support of upper management to make
contingency planning a formal project.
- Prepare a comprehensive list of potentially serious
incidents that could affect normal operations.
- Against each item, each project manager should note a
probability rating and impact severity.
- Discuss differences and form an overall emergency plan.
- Reflect organizational needs and benefits into the
emergency plan.
- The overall emergency plan should contain milestones to
move the organization from a disrupted status to normal operations.
Crisis Control and Recovery
- Define the immediate aftermath of each type of
disaster.
- Involve emergency service staff and specialists who
will control extreme situations.
- Determine which critical business functions should be
resumed and in what order.
- Identify key individuals who should be familiar with
their responsibilities under the plan.
Testing Contingency Plans
- Test each contingency plan with emergency exercises and
drills.
- Plan and perform exercises in environments that
reproduce authentic conditions as far as feasible.
- Test each contingency plan with those persons who would
undertake control if the crisis occurred.
- Document the exercise goals and procedures, and record
the results.
- Use the results to fine tune the contingency plan.
Maintaining Contingency Plans
- Audit each contingency plan, and the back up
arrangements supporting it against the test results.
- Inform all employees and contract workers of the plan,
its contents and their duties and responsibilities.
- Keep contingency plans up to date and applicable to
current circumstances.
- Reflect any changes to organization or to the relative
importance of each part of the organizational process within the
contingency plans.
- Assign responsibilities to key people to ensure that
each contingency plan is regularly updated.
- Ensure that information concerning changes to the
organizational process are properly communicated.
- Test any changes or amendments made to a contingency
plan.
Emergency Training
- Motivate personnel to take disaster recovery planning
seriously, even if the events which would trigger each contingency plan
seem unlikely.
- Identify which personnel should attend first aid and
CPR (cardio-pulmonary resuscitation) training.
- Provide experienced trainers who can recount personal
experiences with each type of crisis.
- Test staff to ensure that they understand their
responsibilities and duties, particularly concerning their activities
which interact with actions taken by others.
- Keep personnel informed of changes insofar as the
changes affect their duties and responsibilities.
- Provide personnel with repeat emergency training every
two or three years.
| Martyn Carruthers
was a medical technician and served on Royal Navy nuclear
submarines during the Cold War. He was health physics and
safety officer at English and Canadian nuclear power stations, and Radiation
Protection Officer for the Canadian government, where he worked with Public Health
and Emergency Measures organizations. Martyn also founded
Soulwork
Solutions,
a complete system of coaching and mentorship. |
|
