Effective management of resources (personnel, teams, facilities, equipment, and/or supplies) demands that certain protocols be developed. Resource management includes coordination, oversight, resource tracking, inventory, and other processes that provide the right resources when and where they are needed.

Typing, inventorying, organizing, and tracking facilitate the procedures for:

• Requesting resources
• Prioritizing resource requests
• Activating and dispatching/deploying resources to incidents
• Demobilizing resources and returning them to normal status

By developing these protocols and procedures, a response or support organization will produce predictable outcomes to requests from client entities. Protocol development is a method of standardizing a process; standardization sets a level of expectation for process outcomes. This confidence is necessary for fully effective emergency management.