Incident Action Planning

Incident action planning guides effective incident management activities. An Incident Action Plan (IAP) is a concise, coherent means of capturing and communicating overall incident priorities, objectives, strategies, tactics, and assignments in the context of both operational and support activities. The IAP should focus on addressing the needs of future timeframes (called operational periods).

To be effective, an IAP should:

Cover a specified timeframe
Be proactive
Specify the incident objectives
State the activities to be completed
Assign responsibilities
Identify needed resources
Specify communication protocols

For smaller/less complex incidents, the IAP may be oral or written, except for hazardous materials incidents, which require a written IAP. FEMA has developed a series of ICS Forms for use in developing a written IAP.

An Incident Action Plan document with the following text written on it: What do we need to do? Who is responsible for doing it? What resources are needed? How do we communicate?