Yep, I'm still at it. It seems with every post about the condition of Incident Command System training as we know it, I'm able to draw more people into our cause (aka the Crusade). While I've never espoused there to be an easy solution, the training that we currently provide for ICS falls well short of doing us any favors. People walk out of each subsequent training course with a marginally increased understanding of the system and how to use it. And that's really the fundamental problem, isn't it?

Perhaps at some point, someone had the idea of developing ICS 100-400 to be knowledge-based courses, with position-specific training to be more about application. Unfortunately, that's a significant disservice to responders and the populations they serve, which was further exacerbated by the NIMS training requirements, creating a type of a false sense of security in which people believed that they have 'been trained in ICS', therefore all is well in the world. Responders, in the broadest sense, at supervisory levels within every community should be trained not only in what ICS is but also how to implement it. Not every community, for a variety of reasons, has reasonable access to position-specific training, so the core ICS curriculum absolutely MUST do a better job in teaching them how to implement the system.

This also goes further than just training. ICS, like so many other things, is a knowledgebase that tends to degrade over time. Without practice, you tend to lose the skills. This is how people who are on Incident Management Teams or those who work regularly in an ICS-based Emergency Operations Center are so well practiced in the system. In the absence (hopefully!) of actual incidents, planned events and exercises go a long way to keeping skills sharp. Even those, however, can get costly and time-consuming to design and conduct. Enter the hybridization of scenario-based training, which is something I've written on in the past. Not only do we need to include more scenario-based training in everything, we need to include a scenario-based ICS skills refresher course as part of the core ICS curriculum.
While I continue to have various thoughts on what there is to be done with the ICS curriculum as a whole, here is my current vision...
ICS-100: (What is ICS?) Pretty much keep this as is, with options for on-line and classroom delivery. The purpose of this course is to serve as an introduction to ICS concepts for those who are likely to come into contact with it and work in lower levels within the system. This is levels one (knowledge) and two (comprehension) of Bloom's taxonomy. It shall serve as a prerequisite to further ICS classes as it provides much of the fundamental terminology.
ICS-200: (How do I work within the system?) Tear down/burn down/nuke the on-line version and never look back. Simply making it 'more accessible' doesn't mean that it's good (it's not). The purpose of this course is to expand on knowledge and begin to approach functionality. I expect content to reach deeper than what is currently within the course.   

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Reporters and media of all kinds are inevitable sources of stress for many crisis management situations, but that doesn't mean it's healthier to shut them out. With the modern 24/7 news cycle and literally millions of places for information to be shared even small issues often mean contacts from media outlets today. 

The Crisis

Home Products manufacturing (name disguised), based in the Midwest with operations throughout North America, received reports from distributor showrooms that some of the gas fireplaces it marketed were blowing up when used, sending glass flying. Two distributor employees had been injured to date, but no known consumers.

While the CPSC was in the process of formally demanding a Class I recall, Home Products reached out to Bernstein Crisis Management for assistance with all relevant internal and external communications.

The Response

The Bernstein Crisis Management team quickly learned that one of the challenges of this recall was that the product involved could only be tracked as far as the first-level buyer, typically a distributor such as one of the large hardware chains or major home builders. Tracking thereafter was at the whim of whatever record keeping was done by the first-level buyer.

This meant that widespread public communication was particularly important to alerting consumers ASAP.

The Bernstein team recommended specific strategies and messaging, which it helped draft. Realizing the CPSC announcements were (a) very dry and (b) only gave facts, never considered the feelings of those impacted (a critical consideration in crisis communications), a CPSC-compliant press release was created factoring in compassionate messaging, and distributed as far as possible using relevant wire services and online publication opportunities.

End result: No further injuries. Product mostly recalled. No hit to company's reputation in terms of lost customers.

© 2019 - Erik Bernstein

Erik Bernstein is Vice President of Bernstein Crisis Management, a specialized firm dedicated to providing holistic strategies for managing crisis situations.