Prospective clients are keen to understand how Incident Ready Consulting can support them with their Business Continuity, Risk Management and ISO22301 issues.
Here are some of the most common questions with examples of how support has been provided.

Absolutely, we have supported more than a dozen organisations with this. Often Incident Management Plans do not reflect strategies deployed during COVID or the technologies now in use. Too often plans contain elements of policy and guidance and are not structured to follow the simple step by step approach needed to raise the alarm, assess impacts, mobilise the Incident Management Team, Activate supporting plans and get in front of the problems. Nobody wants to respond following a one hundred (100) plus page document!   Structuring business continuity and incident management information so that it is easy to locate, and follow is essential. In addition to reviewing the Major Incident Management plan, we also review supporting procedures including Crisis Communications Plans, IT Major Incident Management and Disaster Recovery Plans, Estates and security out of hours response.   With years of experience of managing incidents and developing simple plans we can quickly review your current arrangements, identify how you actually respond in and out of hours, and refresh your plans to reflect your realities, including putting in place role based action cards, aide memoires and standard incident management meeting agendas. Organisations often then look for support to train up their incident response teams and rehearse them through realistic scenario based exercises so that they are familiar with arrangements and confident in their roles.

We love training up people and are skilled at pitching training to the right level based on the seniority and experience of the audience. In addition to face to face sessions, we can also offer online training courses. See our Training page (top menu) for course information and links to demo online versions. Sessions typically start with looking at relevant incident examples in the news and reflecting on the risks that managers are concerned about. Typical learning objectives include the following: Training for Incident Management Team (IMT) members (in person delivery on site) **  A  bespoke 4 hour session to build confidence and review protocols in a supported environment   Learning Objectives: o Business Continuity and Incident Response    *Why? Recent relevant examples in the news * What is my role *Incident Phases o Exploring disruption risks and thresholds   * Disruption risks on your radar *Incident thresholds – when does the IMT need to meet    *Escalation and mobilising response in and out of hours o  Practising roles    *The Incident Management meeting    *Managing assumptions, Legal aspects – decision logging and learning o  Working with emergency responders    *Shared situational awareness    *Where do people go in emergencies? o  Communications and managing reputation *Internal and external communications and managing social media response

We have designed and delivered a huge range of exercises and are confident we can meet your needs whether this is Safety Drills, a DeskTop exercise, a Command Post exercise, or live Multi-Agency exercise. See our webpages for some photos of a complex live exercise delivered for a leading London Hospital.   The benefits of running an Exercise with Incident Ready Consulting include:   Confidence o  That your Incident Management Team has rehearsed response in a safe environment o  That your plans have been stress tested with no risk to the business o  That your response plans are effective and fit for purpose   Learning o  Engaging scenarios deepen learning and help retain important lessons o  Identify gaps in how plans join up (across departments and with key suppliers) o  Expand your understanding of how to work with emergency services    We follow a structured approach to build the exercise with you:   1.       Fact finding – understanding your Incident Management Plan, resources and contingencies   2.       Scenario planning with you to build a realistic and stretching exercise based on your risks and incident response experience. We will agree exercise objectives with you and confirm expected outcomes with each inject.   3.       Exercise delivery – Facilitated to keep the pace and discussion on track. Facilitated hot debrief with participants on the day to confirm improvement actions and ownership. 4.       Management report - Develop a report based on exercise objectives with recommendations, typically within 10 days of delivery. Example approach o  The Desk Top exercise is split into two parts. The first part of play will be on a developing and worsening scenario to test initial response and business continuity strategies. Typically based around a key business event, this is designed to get each member at the table to consider their role and actions. This will include social media injects. o The second part of play will be to test crisis communications. This will involve looking at the way in which your organisation develops, approves and cascades messages and how it supports its spokespeople for crisis media interviews.  

This is a detailed piece of work and one that I have been pleased to support a number of organisations with over the last two years. The testimonial below from Coventry University encapsulates what this looks like. ​"Justin came highly recommended by University colleagues because of his excellent reputation in the Higher Education sector.  Justin delivered an insightful organisation wide resilience gap analysis and improvement project plan.  All of the recommendations were approved in full by the Vice Chancellor at a time of significant budget pressure.  The project Justin set up and is delivering with us has achieved all outputs on time and is making substantial traction to build resilience and help us manage our continuity risks in a systematic way across our wide and complex organisation.  We’re delighted with the support we have received and have no hesitation in recommending Justin and Incident Ready Consulting Ltd to organisations wanting to address resilience and business continuity in an effective and engaging way." ​ Ian Marshall, Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Chief Operating Officer, Coventry University

It is vital to ensure that your Business Impact Analysis is carefully focused and adds value. As a minimum I recommend prioritising the following areas as all areas of an organisation are typically dependent on them: Security (out of hours response), Estates, IT and Communications. I can provide tailored templates supported by guidance and training to ensure that the process brings out business intelligence and supports response planning. My recent blog explores the approach in more detail:  Business Impact Analysis (incidentready.consulting)

We recently delivered a bespoke course for the Open University  - another satisfied client! “Justin came highly recommended on an industry forum, so we engaged him to design and deliver bespoke training for our business continuity leads, to develop their skills and confidence in exercising Business Continuity and Incident Response plans. The session was engaging and highly informative, with positive feedback from all attendees.  It is clear that Justin has a wealth of knowledge and experience – we would definitely use him again for future consultancy support.” ​ Caroline Abbot, Senior Manager, University Secretary’s Office, The Open University Please see our Training page (main menu tab) for details of a wide range of courses on offer. We are always delighted to design courses to meet exactly what you need.

As a qualified and experienced lead auditor to ISO22301:2019 (Business Continuity Management Systems), I have personally led the design and implementation of BCMS and ran the audit process with the BSI to achieve certification. I have also helped organisations transition their systems to the most recent version of the standard and supported them prepare for audit.   You may be interested in a recent blog on the value of certification available here: Time to reconsider certification? (incidentready.consulting)

Having recently completed a detailed review for the University of Cambridge on behalf of their broker Gallagher, I am able to offer a robust insurance approved methodology to help you here.   This blog explains some of the background and reasons behind the need for this review. Uninsurable risks - how can you get ready? (incidentready.consulting)

We love running these workshops with your in house teams covering off internal and external communications and PR!   In just a couple of hours of walking through the crisis communications response to an unfolding incident that starts out of hours, it is possible to draw out a really clear picture of where there are gaps in preparedness, gaps in sign off processes and in channels to reach audiences including during cyber-attacks. If your teams also need help formalising this into an up-to-date Crisis Communications plan, we are experienced in supporting that too.

I am an experienced international public speaker and presenter and able to bring a complex subject to life through stories and case studies. Let me know what you are looking for and when. Incident Ready Consulting offers a wealth of experience and can tailor support to meet your requirements.