Incident Command System Principles

The modern world has revealed numerous ways and principles of how to cope with incidents and provide qualitative help and support as well as organize a team in such a way that it clearly performs its duties. Working in the sphere of incidents management, one should clearly comprehend its importance and how one’s decisions may affect the outcome of an incident itself. The current writing focuses on common language and its significance, the structure of the Consolidated Incident Action Plan and its purpose as well as modular organization and its flexibility as the most vitally important principles contributing to emergency incidents management.

To facilitate the communication, a variety of methods are applied such as “face-to-face discussion, incident dispatchers phoning, radio” communication, etc. (Mollino, 2006). Common language and terminology are the most applicable tools in the sphere of incident management. It is important to use as clear and easy-to-comprehend words as it is only possible to make the communication in case of emergency incident fruitful. The way information is provided allows to evaluate how serious the incident is and immediately discuss the measures to be taken in order to solve the situation as soon as possible (Emergency Management Ontario, 2013). The main point is while communicating with colleagues, it is necessary to use the professional language comprehensive to them. At the same time, whilst dealing with people who have faced an incident, be that the participants or their relatives, the language should be clear, the words and sentences – simple. This will help to build up a communication in a necessary direction. Having a similar goal, numerous agencies may have difficulties in speaking the same language. Hence, there has been a developed system of shortenings and abbreviations for emergency incidents agencies to apply for better understanding of the situation and, as a result, for its quicker solution (Mollino, 2006). However, if a term is used in various agencies but its meaning varies, there may occur serious problems in coping with the incident (Mollino, 2006).

There exists a certain form to be filled to make the Consolidated Incident Action Plan work. Despite that, professionals should gather to discuss the plan and the course of actions in accordance with it. It has to include significant amount of data about the incident; namely, the title, operational period, objectives and strategies, tactics, and even weather forecast are taken into account as well as possible outcome for the future in order to implement the plan and provide proper evaluation of it (Emergency Management Ontario, 2013). The Plan also presupposes a “message to be communicated to the media” (Emergency Management Ontario, 2013). The Plan is to be formed in case “two or more jurisdictions are involved”; it is mandatory according to the policy of a responsible agency; “a number of organizational elements have been activated”; the operational period changes due to the continuation of the incident (Mollino, 2006). The timing for establishing a plan depends on an incident type and the number of organizations and agencies involved into the process (Mollino, 2006).

All the organizations related to the Incident Management System are viewed as modular ones, which means that they are based on the type of incident and its needs as determined by the Incident Commander (Mollino, 2006). The given accident defines the structure of an organization, objectives, tactics, supervising all specificities of the incident, and all the elements related to the given incident (Mollino, 2006).  All the things together, this combination of regulations and united cooperation of the organizations leads to successful outcome of the incident.

The discussed principles of emergency incidents management are the constituents of the overall management course. The common language for this sphere is of great significance as without it, numerous difficulties on the way to cope with the incident and come up with the plan of actions would arise. The Consolidated Incident Action Plan is the form to be filled and discussed before certain measures of solving an emergency incident are applied. Every incident demands a specific approach toward its outcome; hence, the course of actions is flexible and related to the incident. Without cooperation, there can be no successful results achieved and no situations solved; hence, the flexibility and ability to work together would be the best option in the case.