Corporations can learn vital lessons in preparedness from two events in the immediate past: the Virginia earthquake and Hurricane Irene.
In the coming weeks and months, many companies will conduct postmortems on the activities associated with these potential disasters.
Getting the most out of these meetings is important as the country enters the full hurricane season and is also faced with other potential disasters, some of which may be man-made.
Finding the right assistance in evaluating the company’s response to this disaster and planning future actions is often difficult.
An effective team meeting can identify some key questions that need to be asked:
■ What was right with what we did?
■ What was wrong?
■ Did ideas work, and most importantly, which areas need improvement?
Sal Lifrieri, president of Protective Countermeasures Inc., urges companies to think about these issues when preparing an agenda for such a meeting.
Lifrieri said that during the meetings, the team should be prompted by the moderator on 10 specific key areas. A sample of the discussion points:
- Planning : At what point did the business recognize it needed a plan?
- Communications: Was the business able to communicate at each critical phase?
- Critical vendors: Supply-chain issues, operational support.
- Infrastructure: Does the business know where the critical infrastructure is in its facility?
Lifrieri has been asked to conduct these meetings in the past and will be happy to assist other companies construct a viable plan based on his experiences with other corporations.
“Organizations are often reluctant to develop proper continuity of operations plans, except where mandated by statute.
“The time needed and costs can be exorbitant. But the benefits can be enormous in terms of lives and resources. Utilizing lessons learned meetings from each event, while not a preferred planning method, should be utilized at the very least,” Lifrieri says.
Based on its long experience in preventing bad outcomes, he believes a few short meetings are all that is needed. His company has developed a model for such meetings, called “Hurricane Evaluation and Lessons Learned.”
The new program is designed to conduct and moderate corporate teams’ meetings on lessons learned from Hurricane Irene and other crisis faced by the organization.
To talk more about this program, contact Lifrieri at Lifrieri@protectivecountermeasures.com. | 
