"Emergency response is a product of preparedness."
- The 9/11 Commission Report

If one asks the question, "What is the first step in the process to develop an emergency preparedness plan?," many will answer "threat assessment" and cite the need for vulnerability and risk evaluations. In truth, the planning process must begin well before a risk assessment is performed. This article provides an overview of the emergency preparedness planning process.

Building the Foundation:
Gain program priority

The first step in any organizational process, whether it is preparedness planning or developing a new product, is to gain the support of the "stakeholders" of the organization. In most cases, the stakeholders are senior management who have the budgetary authority. In other cases, stakeholders may be clients, constituents or stockholders who signal priorities via their consumption or voting patterns. In either case, it is the stakeholders who will ultimately set (or cue) preferences and dedicate resources. Even before an emergency preparedness planning process is developed, a strategy to get emergency preparedness on the agenda and past the initial discussions must be devised.

In our second article, we discussed the requirement to articulate specific needs prior to hiring an emergency preparedness planner. The same principle applies to garnering program support from corporate leadership.

The first step is to conduct a needs (or requirements) assessment. What does your organization need? A response plan? A preparedness strategy? A continuity plan? An existing plan review? Why have you chosen to undertake this process? Local regulations? Client concerns? Because it's the "right thing to do?" How do you plan on accomplishing the program? In house? With a facilitator? What do you see as the final product? A corporate preparedness plan? Increased employee confidence and awareness? Improved client cooperation? While the initial needs assessment can be general, (as it will likely become more cogent as the process ensues), there must be initial answers to the questions of what, why and by whom. The "how" is the process itself.