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Friday, September 05, 2014

Now what? Plan ahead.

How do we organize our thoughts to make sense of what we hope is a decent plan? We want to make sure the rest of the family can understand what the plan is if something bad happens. The best way to make sure we can do this is to stick to a simple idea when writing stuff down. The first acronym and probably the most important one to remember and apply is........

K.I.S.S.

KEEP
IT
SIMPLE
STUPID

You can replace stupid with Silly or another word you find more appealing. :)

The point is we do not want to make things too difficult, especially if we are involved in a bad day. You and those with you will already have enough to deal with and adding a complicated response to the situation will cause you to react slower when you can at least afford it. Also the more parts you add to the plan the more room you are allowing Mr. Murphy, of Murphy's Law fame, to move in. Let's take our fire plan from the last post.

Using the KISS principle the plan comes out like this.

FIRE!
Put out.
No?
Get out!
Rally everyone, Headcount.
All safe?
Good!!


Remember if a caveman can understand the plan you will be able to understand the plan when the adrenaline is pumping, fear has come along for the ride and you find yourself in a situation you never wanted to be in. Alright let's up the vocabulary level a bit.

The next acronym we need is S.M.E.A.C.. For some of you this is a familiar set of letters. For this it will be a frame work we use to hang our plan on. The letters stand for;

SITUATION
MISSION
EXECUTION
ADMINISTRATIVE AND LOGISTICS
COMMAND AND CONTROL

Now we fill in the Fire Plan to see how this works..............

Situation: fire in the house
Mission: everyone in the house is safe
Execution: Utilize fire extinguisher, pull pin, point at base of fire and use sweeping motion. If needed evacuate home, utilize any opening, if on second floor use ladder.
Administrative and Logistics: Where is the fire extinguisher located? Where is the ladder, if needed, located?
Command and Control: Everyone meets at the mailbox. Account for everyone.

Another simple way to do some planning (KISS) is to ask;

What?
When?
Why?
How?

No matter what format you use the important part is to do some sort of planning ahead of time. Everything you have an answer for before you are under stress is one less thing you have to think about! This is important during a crisis because having an answer allows you to move on to the next question faster. With enough planning you will not have any unanswered questions.

While you are still thinking about plans go ahead and write one. Start with the most obvious issue for your area. Being in California my obvious issue is going to be....... nope. Fires would be my obvious issue! In the last five or so years we have had to pack up the cars and be ready to leave on at least three occasions. Take fifteen minutes, write a plan and K.I.S.S..

Stay Safe!!!!!


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