It’s not enough to have a crisis plan on paper. It must be practiced, rehearsed and tested in order for it to work when the time comes to respond. Organizations that fail to invest in these things often don’t respond well during a crisis situation. A great example of this is what happened with Volkswagen…
Decision-making is a major challenge for incident management teams. The time and effort that goes into decision-making usually leads to delays in response, which can lead to increased costs and legal liability. One way of tackling this problem is having a cyber security plan and an incident response team with clear roles and responsibilities (e.g.,…
Series authors: Milena Maneva and Mark Hoffman This is the fourth article in a five-part series on returning to the office. Previous article: Return-to-Office: Preparing your Environment Communicating to all key stakeholders is important, despite the limited information we have on the virus and the potential cure timeline, it is important to keep everyone…
Series authors: Milena Maneva and Mark Hoffman This is the second article in a five part series on returning to the office. Previous article: Welcome to the “Return-to-Office” Five-part Series People, people, people! It is all about the people. An essential resilience and recovery strategy should include protecting your core asset – your…
Does your organization have “silo mentality”? A Common Scenario: Facility: We manage our own emergency program and don’t need help from the corporate office Corporate: How will you respond to an emergency? Facility: We have a plan for that. Corporate: What does the plan state you will say to the media? Facility: That’s your…
In any discussion on continuity of operations, it is reasonable to ask, “Why should my organization invest in a tabletop exercise program?” While the reasons are many, some that serve as a foundation for a strategic-based approach to tabletop exercise programs include: Increased operational resilience: Operational resilience requires comprehensive knowledge of the organization;…
Emergency Response? Crisis Management? Business Continuity? Disaster Recovery? How do you know which plan to use during an incident? It’s often confusing which plan to activate, and who is in charge. Each plan should clearly identify the scope and responsibilities for executing the plan and have distinct and disparate objectives. During the life-cycle of…
Recently I was running a hurricane drill for a client in the Caribbean and they were inspecting their campus to see what debris needed to be removed. Each year, as part of the drill, we look for things that could ‘float or fly’ during a hurricane and make plans for proper storage or disposal. This…
Lone-actor gun attacks against populated areas such as arenas and crowded places such as schools can challenge first responders and those organizations or educational institutions that are impacted. Now think about increasing the number of attackers and adding explosive devices, more weapons and other arms. Consider a Paris or Brussels style attack in the heart…
Simulated crisis tabletop exercises are like a flu shot: The vaccine won’t prevent the illness one-hundred percent of the time, but if you do get the flu, the vaccine will greatly reduce the illness’ severity and bring you back to health more quickly. The potential illness in your organization is, of course, a crisis….