Incident Management Structures

The crisis event may be tactically managed by several layers of incident response teams. The event incident response team manager may be a working group engineer, an office manager, or a local security specialist—typically working within a remote or small work site. The project incident response team manager is typically more experienced, and where possible trained and qualified in crisis management, and is often the operations or facility manager or security manager within a project task. In some cases, higher levels of management such as the program element will also perform an incident response function, although for larger projects their responsibilities may straddle both incident management and crisis response.

The focus of the incident response element will be to maintain the safety of personnel and high‐value resources, as well as deal with injured persons or damaged infrastructures and equipment. While their primary focus will be the security and safety of personnel and critical assets, this can be best achieved only by informing relevant crisis agencies of the situation in order to leverage additional support, both in operational terms and for management, administration, and logistical support. The incident response group should have tactical, decision‐making authority in order to bring control to a situation and reduce impacts while preventing an escalation of the crisis; however, it should be directly managed and supported by the program or country crisis response team.

The company should seek to empower incident management groups with clearly defined roles and responsibilities, enabling them to make decisions with confidence through knowledge and clear guidelines and instructions. Flexibility and innovation are often required, as each crisis event is unique, and lateral thinking is often necessary to manage an event. Incident management teams might fall into one or all of the following categories:

§  Strategic.: Focused on the long‐term implications of the event, the leveraging of unique high‐profile support, evaluation of further risk factors that might cascade from the point of crisis, and dealing with all peripheral matters not directly associated with the actual resolution of the emergency situation itself.

§  Operational.: Focused on safeguarding both personnel and critical resources during the crisis event, as well as any resulting micro crises. Typically this team comprises the management team who are supporting the tactical component and mobilizing initial resources while also interfacing with the crisis management teams. Often, but not always, the operational element is somewhat removed from the actual event.

§  Tactical.: Focused on operational responses to the specific event in order to safeguard the well‐being of personnel, as well as protect critical assets, during a crisis event. Typically, tactical elements are directly involved with the incident itself (i.e., helping at the site of a road traffic accident, dealing with a civil disturbance, managing a casualty, evacuating personnel from a flooded area, and so forth).