Eight Emergency Management Planning Principles

We’re living in an age of heightened threats to the social, built, economic, and natural environment, making emergency management planning more important than ever. But to many, the emergency management planning process remains a mystery.

Here are the eight emergency management planning principles you should know about.

What is emergency management planning?

But first, what is emergency management planning? Emergency planning refers to the collective and collaborative effort by which agreements are reached and documented between people and organizations to meet their public’s or (individual) entities’ needs.

The elements of emergency planning are broad. They can apply equally to communication and consultation to garner agreement on risk and consequences, as well as to preparedness, response, relief, and recovery arrangements.

Emergency management planning principles you should know about

Given how broad these elements can be, a foundation will be needed to structure the planning effort.

So, what principles should you apply to ensure outcomes are documented and continuously improved upon?

Here are the eight principles the Australian Government Department of Home Affairs and Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience have offered:  

1. Informed by risk

Emergency planning is based on a study of risk management.

2. Reduces unknowns

Emergency planning bolsters an organization’s understanding of risks, vulnerabilities, and treatment options across the social, built, economic, and natural environment.

3. Collaborative and inclusive

Emergency planning involves consultation and engagement between those stakeholders affected by the plan.

4. Strategic

Emergency planning develops strategic objectives, relationships, and networks.

5. Solutions oriented

Emergency planning develops agreed approaches to managing risks and consequences.

6. Iterative and informed

Learning from each step of the emergency planning process informs the subsequent steps.

7. Builds adaptive capacity

Emergency planning develops frameworks that provide a base on which to build flexible and adaptive solutions.

8. Shares responsibility

Emergency planning documents actions to be undertaken by a wide range of people and entities.

The role of resilience software in emergency management planning

Still, organizations have built plans based on these best-practice principles. Operationalizing those plans, however, remains a challenge in this mobile age, without the right digital technology.

What are some capabilities that might help? Firstly, consider an emergency management platform to boost your resilience with the ability to plan, coordinate, and streamline response efforts to minimize the consequences of an incident, crisis, or emergency and return operations to normal as quickly as possible.

Response plans and checklists capabilities to consider include the following:

• Create plans, playbooks, and checklists to quickly activate and dispatch your teams
• Provide clear instructions on what each person’s roles and responsibilities are in an event, and what tasks they need to complete
• Use out-of-the-box plan activation workflows to speed up incident response
• Automate and track task allocation and status
• See plan progress at a glance, create and assign tasks on the fly, and stay aware of any blockages or delays
• Ensure all your important documents, procedures, and other critical files are always at your fingertips

For more on the digital software capabilities you need to operationalize emergency management planning principles, request a demo of Noggin Resilience today.