How does your organization react when it detects an incident? Who communicates and to whom? How is the progress of the situation monitored and reported afterwards? And how is the information quickly shared with critical stakeholders?
We have noticed that in many organizations, incident management processes may appear to be in place on paper, but when it comes to a real-life situation requiring practical measures, effective communication, and quick restoration of operations, challenges often arise.
By reading this article, you’ll learn how Secapp can improve incident management as a modern solution, and help organizations meet security standards.
Common challenges in incident management
The most common challenges that incident managers face, especially in large-scale incidents, are often related to reaching and assembling people, managing internal and external communication, or targeting the right group of people. Additionally, manually gathering log data and information from various sources is surprisingly time-consuming and increases the risk of errors.
Often, processes may seem to be in order on paper, but when it comes to a real-life situation requiring rapid response and effective communication, problems can arise early on. Safety management documents are of little use if they are scattered across different folders, systems, or network drives, and it takes valuable seconds trying to find them at the start of a rapidly developing acute situation.
Do the situations below sound familiar? Unfortunately, they are commonplace in many organizations.
- When something happens, where can you find up-to-date documents and instructions for incident management?
- Can you reach key individuals quickly and reliably, for example, via Slack or Teams instant messaging, and invite them to a virtual meeting?
- Do you know who to call and assemble in the event of an incident?
- Do you write the MIM (Major Incident Management) team meeting notes in Word or a similar document?
- Do you look for incident message templates (if they have been created) on a network drive, trying to remember the correct keyword for them?
- What if you miss a meeting invite because of a busy day or your phone is on silent? How do you reach people if the network connection is down and instant messaging platforms stop working? And if a critical incident happens outside normal working hours, how quickly can you reach the right people?
- Where do you maintain situational awareness and share updates?
- How can you communicate the resolution of the incident and begin the process of returning to normal operations?
Without a professional alerting and communication tool, the workload related to incident management in organizations is often extensive. When incidents are managed with so-called “traditional” tools, there is usually a significant amount of extra manual work, and data needs to be gathered from various systems. It can take a considerable amount of time before the information about the incident reaches all relevant people.
For example, critical information sent via email may reach its recipients with a delay of several hours – especially outside working hours. Additionally, the workload of post-incident reporting can become huge when data is gathered from various sources, and is not centralized in a single system.
Get processes in order and make training part of preparedness
Rarely does anyone in an organization specifically wait for incidents ready to act, as their job also includes other tasks. When something unexpected then happens, it interrupts the normal work rhythm and raises stress levels. In such situations, it’s important that processes are in place and people have familiarized themselves with them in advance. Confidence in familiar procedures provides security, even in chaotic situations.
In addition to process planning, organizations are now required to continuously develop and test their processes in practice. Our customers have utilized Secapp for various exercises, from emergency drills to desktop exercises. Training is beneficial on many levels, since it brings different situations to light for continuous development and learning. Potential areas of improvement and strengths are both highlighted.
In addition to increasing the organization’s internal sense of readiness, continuity management and preparedness measures are also required by law. For example, the NIS2 directive, entering into force in 2024, will require an even wider range of sectors to implement certain minimum measures, particularly related to cybersecurity resilience and response readiness. The CER directive, proposed by the European Commission, also aims to improve the resilience of critical services in society. It imposes obligations on certain critical entities regarding continuity management and recovery from incidents.
Did you know that Secapp provides easy-to-use tools for organizing exercises?
Read also: Practice makes perfect – Safety exercise at the Port of Helsinki
Communication is the backbone of incident management
Communication is an essential part of incident management. Internal and external communication are equally important. The faster information about an incident is forwarded, the better the MIM (Major Incident Management) team can focus on resolving the problem.
This way, the users of the downed service know that the situation is under control, and customer support won’t be burdened with inquiries. Keeping internal stakeholders up-to-date also helps avoid unnecessary questions and overlaps. This makes it easier for the MIM team to work efficiently.
Reaching the right target group is not always easy. The impact of an incident may be limited to a specific group or location, in which case it’s important to limit communication to only them. Pre-prepared message templates can make communication faster and easier, as well as having up-to-date and easily accessible contact details of key people in the incident.
Efficiency with professional tools – an incident management environment for exceptional situations
When an incident strikes, traditional communication and project management tools may not be enough. Manual work, scattered information and slow communication processes can lead to delays that cost your company both time and money.
It’s important to be prepared for reaching people quickly and reliably. Secapp reaches people through multiple channels (application, SMS, email) and the high-priority alert also bypasses the phone’s silent mode. This ensures that meetings or nighttime don’t prevent information from getting through. It’s also important to ensure that communication works even when the primary system is down.
With Secapp, you can handle incident management with one tool that unites and automates processes, reduces manual work, and saves hours of time. It provides security and reliability to the whole organization and reduces people’s stress and the sense of chaos during incidents.
With Secapp, this is how incident management works at its simplest:
- Incident is detected – Press one button on your phone or computer.
- Gather the incident team – With one click, the message “Gather MIM team” reaches key people in seconds, and discussions can begin in the automatically created group.
- Communication – Ready-made message templates are ready to send to different target groups.
- Situational picture – Maintain situational awareness on Secapp’s discussion platform, open a video connection, and share files.
- Analysis – Secapp’s checklists and processes keep everyone up-to-date. Afterwards, you can easily compile log information and other relevant details into reports.
Secapp also provides tools for everyday communication, documentation and reporting. When these features are used regularly, the system remains familiar and ready-to-use also in surprising situations. Investing in security pays itself off in everyday use, and also works reliably in critical situations.
Secapp as an incident management tool
With Secapp, you can implement guided paths to critical work situations and build effective procedures for alerting in advance. For example, you can create ready-made message templates for different scenarios, transfer your organization’s crisis action cards into digital checklists, and build message automation based on responses. Additionally, you can save all your safety documents centrally in Secapp, such as plans and instructions.
Message templates can include pre-defined recipients, instructions, and possible attachments, enabling a quick response to real-life situations. In an unexpected situation, checklists help you understand what needs to be done and in which order. The system is suitable for both high-priority alerting as well as assembling the MIM team, for example, for a video meeting.
These features ease the workload of those responsible for MIM processes, allowing them to focus on what truly matters in a critical situation. They can be at ease, when they know how the situation is progressing, where to find the necessary information, and who is responsible for what. This also reduces human errors and ensures that business-protecting measures are initiated quickly.
Often organizations are committed to service level agreements (SLA) with their customers. These agreements define the quality of service and respondents in the event of an incident. The MIM team is responsible for ensuring that these requirements are met. If incident management fails and the terms of the agreement are not met, the organization may face fines, claims for damages, or even termination of the agreement.
Secure communication tool separate from the rest of your organization’s IT infrastructure
Secapp is a separate system from the rest of your organization’s infrastructure. Due to this, it improves the operational reliability of organizations even during incidents. In large-scale incidents, the organization’s own infrastructure services may be unavailable, but Secapp maintains its high availability as an independent system. Secapp could therefore be described as a system that improves the IT well-being of organizations.
Especially for companies that handle 24/7 service management, it’s important to have an effective communication solution that works when there are disruptions in the company’s own infrastructure. While internal systems typically serve well as workflow management tools, with Secapp, you can also manage the situation when other services are out of use. Therefore, Secapp has an important place as the leading tool for secure communication, separate from the rest of the company’s IT infrastructure.
An expert from Secapp was interviewed for this article: Janne Tiainen. An Incident Manager working in the IT sector was also interviewed for this article.
How does your organization react when it detects an incident? Who communicates and to whom? How is the progress of the situation monitored and reported afterwards? And how is the information quickly shared with critical stakeholders?
We have noticed that in many organizations, incident management processes may appear to be in place on paper, but when it comes to a real-life situation requiring practical measures, effective communication, and quick restoration of operations, challenges often arise.
By reading this article, you’ll learn how Secapp can improve incident management as a modern solution, and help organizations meet security standards.
Common challenges in incident management
The most common challenges that incident managers face, especially in large-scale incidents, are often related to reaching and assembling people, managing internal and external communication, or targeting the right group of people. Additionally, manually gathering log data and information from various sources is surprisingly time-consuming and increases the risk of errors.
Often, processes may seem to be in order on paper, but when it comes to a real-life situation requiring rapid response and effective communication, problems can arise early on. Safety management documents are of little use if they are scattered across different folders, systems, or network drives, and it takes valuable seconds trying to find them at the start of a rapidly developing acute situation.
Do the situations below sound familiar? Unfortunately, they are commonplace in many organizations.
- When something happens, where can you find up-to-date documents and instructions for incident management?
- Can you reach key individuals quickly and reliably, for example, via Slack or Teams instant messaging, and invite them to a virtual meeting?
- Do you know who to call and assemble in the event of an incident?
- Do you write the MIM (Major Incident Management) team meeting notes in Word or a similar document?
- Do you look for incident message templates (if they have been created) on a network drive, trying to remember the correct keyword for them?
- What if you miss a meeting invite because of a busy day or your phone is on silent? How do you reach people if the network connection is down and instant messaging platforms stop working? And if a critical incident happens outside normal working hours, how quickly can you reach the right people?
- Where do you maintain situational awareness and share updates?
- How can you communicate the resolution of the incident and begin the process of returning to normal operations?
Without a professional alerting and communication tool, the workload related to incident management in organizations is often extensive. When incidents are managed with so-called “traditional” tools, there is usually a significant amount of extra manual work, and data needs to be gathered from various systems. It can take a considerable amount of time before the information about the incident reaches all relevant people.
For example, critical information sent via email may reach its recipients with a delay of several hours – especially outside working hours. Additionally, the workload of post-incident reporting can become huge when data is gathered from various sources, and is not centralized in a single system.
Get processes in order and make training part of preparedness
Rarely does anyone in an organization specifically wait for incidents ready to act, as their job also includes other tasks. When something unexpected then happens, it interrupts the normal work rhythm and raises stress levels. In such situations, it’s important that processes are in place and people have familiarized themselves with them in advance. Confidence in familiar procedures provides security, even in chaotic situations.
In addition to process planning, organizations are now required to continuously develop and test their processes in practice. Our customers have utilized Secapp for various exercises, from emergency drills to desktop exercises. Training is beneficial on many levels, since it brings different situations to light for continuous development and learning. Potential areas of improvement and strengths are both highlighted.
In addition to increasing the organization’s internal sense of readiness, continuity management and preparedness measures are also required by law. For example, the NIS2 directive, entering into force in 2024, will require an even wider range of sectors to implement certain minimum measures, particularly related to cybersecurity resilience and response readiness. The CER directive, proposed by the European Commission, also aims to improve the resilience of critical services in society. It imposes obligations on certain critical entities regarding continuity management and recovery from incidents.
Did you know that Secapp provides easy-to-use tools for organizing exercises?
Read also: Practice makes perfect – Safety exercise at the Port of Helsinki
Communication is the backbone of incident management
Communication is an essential part of incident management. Internal and external communication are equally important. The faster information about an incident is forwarded, the better the MIM (Major Incident Management) team can focus on resolving the problem.
This way, the users of the downed service know that the situation is under control, and customer support won’t be burdened with inquiries. Keeping internal stakeholders up-to-date also helps avoid unnecessary questions and overlaps. This makes it easier for the MIM team to work efficiently.
Reaching the right target group is not always easy. The impact of an incident may be limited to a specific group or location, in which case it’s important to limit communication to only them. Pre-prepared message templates can make communication faster and easier, as well as having up-to-date and easily accessible contact details of key people in the incident.
Efficiency with professional tools – an incident management environment for exceptional situations
When an incident strikes, traditional communication and project management tools may not be enough. Manual work, scattered information and slow communication processes can lead to delays that cost your company both time and money.
It’s important to be prepared for reaching people quickly and reliably. Secapp reaches people through multiple channels (application, SMS, email) and the high-priority alert also bypasses the phone’s silent mode. This ensures that meetings or nighttime don’t prevent information from getting through. It’s also important to ensure that communication works even when the primary system is down.
With Secapp, you can handle incident management with one tool that unites and automates processes, reduces manual work, and saves hours of time. It provides security and reliability to the whole organization and reduces people’s stress and the sense of chaos during incidents.
With Secapp, this is how incident management works at its simplest:
- Incident is detected – Press one button on your phone or computer.
- Gather the incident team – With one click, the message “Gather MIM team” reaches key people in seconds, and discussions can begin in the automatically created group.
- Communication – Ready-made message templates are ready to send to different target groups.
- Situational picture – Maintain situational awareness on Secapp’s discussion platform, open a video connection, and share files.
- Analysis – Secapp’s checklists and processes keep everyone up-to-date. Afterwards, you can easily compile log information and other relevant details into reports.
Secapp also provides tools for everyday communication, documentation and reporting. When these features are used regularly, the system remains familiar and ready-to-use also in surprising situations. Investing in security pays itself off in everyday use, and also works reliably in critical situations.
Secapp as an incident management tool
With Secapp, you can implement guided paths to critical work situations and build effective procedures for alerting in advance. For example, you can create ready-made message templates for different scenarios, transfer your organization’s crisis action cards into digital checklists, and build message automation based on responses. Additionally, you can save all your safety documents centrally in Secapp, such as plans and instructions.
Message templates can include pre-defined recipients, instructions, and possible attachments, enabling a quick response to real-life situations. In an unexpected situation, checklists help you understand what needs to be done and in which order. The system is suitable for both high-priority alerting as well as assembling the MIM team, for example, for a video meeting.
These features ease the workload of those responsible for MIM processes, allowing them to focus on what truly matters in a critical situation. They can be at ease, when they know how the situation is progressing, where to find the necessary information, and who is responsible for what. This also reduces human errors and ensures that business-protecting measures are initiated quickly.
Often organizations are committed to service level agreements (SLA) with their customers. These agreements define the quality of service and respondents in the event of an incident. The MIM team is responsible for ensuring that these requirements are met. If incident management fails and the terms of the agreement are not met, the organization may face fines, claims for damages, or even termination of the agreement.
Secure communication tool separate from the rest of your organization’s IT infrastructure
Secapp is a separate system from the rest of your organization’s infrastructure. Due to this, it improves the operational reliability of organizations even during incidents. In large-scale incidents, the organization’s own infrastructure services may be unavailable, but Secapp maintains its high availability as an independent system. Secapp could therefore be described as a system that improves the IT well-being of organizations.
Especially for companies that handle 24/7 service management, it’s important to have an effective communication solution that works when there are disruptions in the company’s own infrastructure. While internal systems typically serve well as workflow management tools, with Secapp, you can also manage the situation when other services are out of use. Therefore, Secapp has an important place as the leading tool for secure communication, separate from the rest of the company’s IT infrastructure.
An expert from Secapp was interviewed for this article: Janne Tiainen. An Incident Manager working in the IT sector was also interviewed for this article.
