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Want to make sure that you're as prepared as you can be for when a major incident hits your business? 

Major incidents have the ability to cause serious damage to your business, especially when there is downtime and the associated costs, nevermind the bad reputation if it's not handled properly.  

That's why it's so important to look out for the signs that suggest you're unprepared for when that major incident hits. 

1. You haven’t tested your incident management plan in the last 3 months

Although you've taken the time to sit down and devise your incident management plan, it's very likely that things have changed since you wrote it up. → Click to Tweet. Once you have your plan and established your incident management process, it's time to put it into practice - test it out!  

What's key about incident management is that the process is ready whenever you need it, at the time when you least expect to need it. You need to make sure that your process still holds up, which means regular checks and amendments.

Put your incident plan through its paces at least once a quarter, and make the necessary revisions. 

If you haven't tested your incident management plan in the last year, it's very likely that the process isn't going to flow as you expected it to 12 months ago. Being prepared for a crisis means regular drills. → Click to Tweet.

2. You don’t have an incident management plan

Maybe you have a rough idea written down somewhere, or maybe you and your colleagues had a meeting on incident management a couple of weeks ago - but if your incident management plan isn't fully documented, tested and analysed then you're still unprepared for any major incidents that hit. → Click to Tweet.

You don't need to try invent the wheel, there is plenty of advice out there that you can adopt and test in your organisation.

Take the time to fully plan your incident management process, taking into account the different scenarios of what might happen, and communicate this to the right people. 

3. Your personnel isn't updated 

Your office first-aider can’t help someone if they left the company three months ago. Similarly, your incident response process will fall apart if you don’t keep the roster current. → Click to Tweet. 

Don't neglect your incident management plan.

Ensure that your incident management plan is updated when employees join and leave your organisation, don't neglect your incident management plan. 

Conclusions:

Constantly fire-fighting other issues can make it easy to forget about your incident management plan, often it's put to one side to deal with tomorrow. If you're serious about having a strong incident management process that runs smoothly when a crisis hits, ensure that there is a member of the team that has ownership over it and is accountable for keeping it up to date.  

Want to learn more? Check out this collection of incident planning articles.  

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