When a crisis hits, teams need to be able to gather accurate information in a centralized, accessible space. That’s why crisis management programs must include protocols for robust incident reporting and incident documentation.
But what exactly are the must-have incident reporting features in crisis management software? We tackle them all in the following article.
Incident reporting for effective crisis management
Indeed, crisis teams must be able to gather key details about the incident and the institutional response both before and after an incident.
To do so, though, crisis management software needs to be able to create and maintain a “single source of truth,” acting as a hub for qualitative and accurate information. Such a single source of truth enables clear communication, thorough assessments, and insights for future improvements.
Must-have incident reporting features in crisis management software
Beyond that, an effective crisis management platform also needs to be able to account for what the team needs to do (and why) as well as deliver a process that makes carrying out the organization’s incident reporting processes as intuitive and frictionless as possible.
Teams might still be stymied as to what to look for in advanced crisis and incident management software. We, therefore, recommend considering platforms that let organizations empower their teams to more efficiently and effectively achieve incident reporting and crisis management objectives.
Those crisis management platforms are likely to feature the following incident reporting features:
1. Templates
While every incident is unique, many incidents are similar enough to enable advanced crisis and incident management software to offer templates for different incident types. For example, equipment malfunctions have similar enough protocols for detectability, predictability, data-gathering, assessment, preventability, and reporting, so as to have enabled the development of a standard baseline template for incident reporting and documentation.
Digital incident reporting templates like those prompt the team by guiding them to understand which key pieces of information to look for, how to find and record them, how to analyze a completed incident report, and how to apply insights to improve resilience. This must-have functionality prevents teams from having to develop protocols manually or start from scratch, making the process faster and more qualitative for each incident.
2. Communication, escalation, and notification
The most intuitively designed crisis management software creates adequate and appropriate space to build a “single source of truth” for incident reporting and incident documentation. But to effectively follow a crisis management protocol, that same space must include crisis management communication tools that keep personnel clear, driving procedural alignment between crisis management team members.
Ideally, a crisis management platform should give team members clear communication channels to help them maintain a common operating picture, escalate vital messages like briefings or debriefings to key stakeholders, or notify the larger organization to amplify situational awareness when it’s appropriate to do so. This way, overall organizational alignment is preserved, and the organization can return to business as usual more quickly.
3. Compliance
Questions about incident preparedness, organizational resilience, and business continuity often arise after an incident. They may originate from within the organization, but they’re just as likely to come from external regulatory bodies, as well.
When that happens, a crisis management platform should be able to account for mandatory reporting requirements, both during and after the incident, and offer crisis management teams adequate guidance to ensure such requirements are fulfilled accurately, completely, and on time. That way, team members aren’t responsible for identifying requirements or learning how to fulfill them on their own.
4. Analytics
Just as there’s enough consistency among types of incidents to generate crisis management response and incident reporting templates, there’s enough to templatize incident documentation analytics, reporting, and intelligence visualization, too. This functionality enables crisis management teams to make apples-to-apples comparisons between incidents and the respective responses to each, helping them track the organization’s progress over time as it manages each successive event.
5. Automation
All the functionality above is enhanced by the ease and utility of crisis information management software. Automation only serves to further enhance the user’s experience with the platform.
Indeed, automating crisis management process not only relieves team members of some guesswork but also ensures every step is addressed at the appropriate time, by the right parties to meet all obligations.
Of course, there’s more to crisis management software than incident reporting and documentation. To learn more about what you should be looking out for in an advanced crisis and incident management platform, download our Buyer’s Guide to Crisis Management Software.
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)