What is the difference between incident response and crisis management?
Incident response, as the name implies, involves responding to a discrete incident. It might be a cybersecurity breach, a system outage, or a third-party failure; the goal is to resolve the problem and quickly return to functionality before it causes larger organizational impact. Crisis management, on the other hand, is a bigger-picture endeavor. It’s needed when a disruption threatens to have larger, long-term consequences, so it entails a wide array of mitigation efforts, including stakeholder communications, public relations, and strategic solutions.
How do I build a crisis management framework for a global company?
You’ll need a crisis management team that will commit itself to identifying risks, strategizing response, and directing the development of processes to follow during disruptions. Regular training and simulations are important, as is reviewing every drill or crisis after the fact in order to learn and improve. Communications are crucial throughout any crisis, so you’ll need to set up a proper company-wide approach.
What metrics should be on a crisis management dashboard?
In a crisis, you need to know exactly what’s happening and what’s being done about it. You should be able to tell at a glance who is being affected, how long the crisis has been ongoing, and how severe it is. You’ll need to understand the status of all your communications—who has been notified and who needs to be, both internally and externally. You’ll need to know who on the crisis team is helping and who’s available. You’ll also need to know where things stand in terms of recovery.
What types of crisis management exercises help meet regulatory expectations?
Regular tabletop exercises are important, but they’re only a first step. You’ll also need to conduct simulations and drills (both limited and large scale) to test your plans. Don’t overlook your third parties—they’re integral to your organization. Communication is absolutely critical in a crisis as well, so you need to test your internal and external communication strategies regularly to ensure they’re up to date and flawless. Finally, because every crisis should serve as a learning opportunity, you’ll want to ensure you have a solid issue management process built into your exercises and live events to more easily carry out standardized post-incident reviews.
What roles and responsibilities should be defined in an incident management team?
It’s important that this team work together well to coordinate an effective response to operational disruptions. The key roles within an Incident Management Team are typically filled by leaders across key operational areas. The Incident Manager is often a Business Continuity Manager, Resilience Lead, or Director of Operations who oversees the entire response. A Communications Lead, such as a Corporate Communications Manager or PR Director, handles internal and external messaging. IT Leads (e.g., Director of IT or IT Operations Manager) manage technical recovery, while Facilities or Security Managers address physical disruptions. Business Unit Leaders, Legal Counsel, HR representatives, and documentation support round out the team to ensure a coordinated and compliant response. These roles should be pre-assigned, trained, and documented in your incident management plan to enable swift, coordinated action when disruptions occur.
