Over my thirty-plus years as an emergency manager I’ve had the opportunity to review numerous emergency plans from a variety of organizations, ranging from small communities and federal agencies in the public sector to private sector companies in a variety of industries. After a while you notice a sameness to them, not surprising as most organizations follow the one-size-fits-all guidance from the federal government. Don’t misunderstand, I’m not against standardization per se and have even encouraged it in many cases. However, many of the plans I’ve reviewed seem to have a common feature: they will be largely useless in an actual crisis.
In his book Mission Improbable: Using Fantasy Documents to Tame Disaster, sociologist Lee Clarke describes plans as “rationality badges” used by organizations to demonstrate that they are in control of a crisis, regardless of their actual level of preparedness. Writing in Disaster Response: Principles of Preparation and Coordination, Erik Auf der Heide devotes an entire chapter to the “paper plan syndrome”, the assumption that because a plan exists, an organization is prepared for crisis. In our rush towards standardization, we have made the development of a “good” emergency operations plan (EOP) the central focus and measurement of our planning rather recognizing that it is a tool we use to coordinate the activities of our crisis management team. If your plan cannot be used by those charged with managing a crisis, you’re not ready, no matter how pretty your plan is.
Why are so many plans useless? I can point to many, many reasons: internal inconsistencies, duplication, excessive length, missing or hard to find critical information, no buy in from key stakeholders – the list is endless. But it all comes down to a simple concept: plans are not written with the end user in mind. Instead, plans are written to please a potential reviewer such as the public, a board of directors, or funding authorities such as state or federal agencies. This results in a plan that contains information not needed by the end user but may be needed to demonstrate that the organization is conformant with specific requirements.
Let me give you an example of what I mean. The base plan is a brief description of the way an organization will approach a crisis. It is a concept of operation that describes overall strategy, relationships, responsibilities, and authorities. It should be brief and contain only essential information. yet many of the plans I have reviewed contain a lengthy description of the incident command system (ICS) to demonstrate that the organization is using ICS. Given that the implementation of ICS includes training for key personnel, the question is, “Who is going to use this?” Personnel who have been trained won’t need it. I submit that someone responding under the plan who is not familiar with ICS will not have time to read this part of the plan and would probably find it inadequate in that it isn’t task specific. If the intent was really to address lack of training, there are better ways of dealing with this problem such is just-in-time training or initial orientations.
One of the problems that I’ve encountered is that planners are not always conversant with emergency management principles and tend to create confusion when creating annexes to the base plan. A key concept in developing your emergency plan is understanding the difference between response generated and agent generated needs. Response generated needs tend to remain relatively consistent among crises while agent generated needs are created by the specific type of crisis. Functional annexes address response generated needs while hazard specific annexes address agent generated needs.
This seems a simple concept, yet I have seen many plans where hazard specific annexes recapitulate much of the information already covered in functional annexes. The problem arises when the separate annexes contradict each other instead of being mutually supportive or completely change the original concept contained in the functional annex. This usually happens when the hazard specific annex is created by a separate planning group and the annex is not vetted for consistency with the rest of the plan. At best it requires the user to switch back and forth between annexes; at worst it creates confusion and the possibility for conflict. Hazard specific annexes are essentially contingency plans based on specific assumptions and should build on the concepts and authorities already identified in functional annexes. Like the base plan, they provide a strategy for dealing with a specific type of incident and are not intended to be separate plans.
Don’t fall into the paper plan syndrome trap. Remember that the EOP doesn’t have to be a single volume that incorporates all the worlds knowledge. Demonstrating conformance with standards can be done through other evidence such as supporting plans, training records, and exercise after-action reports. Detailed information can be included in departmental plans, field operations guides, or manuals. Keep your EOP lean enough that the users can find the information they need without wading through extraneous information that could be better covered elsewhere. The plan is just a tool; it’s your crisis management team that is the important element in dealing with disaster. Make their job a bit easier by giving them a plan they can actually use.
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