IT Management Reference Guide

Conducting a fire drill may seem to be a fairly rudimentary activity for a manager, and not likely high on his or her priority list. In some companies the IT department may not have any direct involvement in conducting such an exercise. But the importance of performing fire drills, and their tie-in to an IT department, are both increasing. Data centers usually have a close working relationship with their companies' departments of facilities, physical security and business continuity. In some instances, one or more of these departments may report directly to IT.

Most IT network operations centers (NOCs) today house physical facility monitoring systems. These monitors include sensors and alarms for the smoke and fire detection and suppression systems. In the event of an actual fire, these NOCs would become directly involved with facilitating the evacuation of the data center and its host building.

Conducting an effective fire drill does not happen by accident. Managers need to thoroughly plan such an exercise to ensure it is sufficiently staffed, coordinated, executed and analyzed for improvements. As a former IT manager and a current consultant, I have participated in several fire drills over the years. My level of involvement varied depending on my role within the company. In some of the drills I was the lead coordinator, for others I was a facilitator for the planning, and for still others I was simply an observer. From these experiences I developed ten helpful tips for conducting an effective fire drill. Figure 1 lists these ten tips.

Figure 1 Ten Tips To Improve Fire Drills

1. Coordinate internally – A successful fire drill will involve several key internal groups, and their participation needs to be well coordinated. These groups may include facilities, business continuity, physical security, IT, and emergency safety response teams (ESRTs). In smaller companies some of these departments may be combined but regardless of the size of the firms representatives from each of the key internal groups should be included in the planning for the exercise.
2. Coordinate externally – Similar to coordinating key internal departments, a successful fire drill also needs to coordinate with its key external agencies. These groups should include representatives from the local fire department, the alarm company, the elevator company, building maintenance and property management. The alarm and elevator representatives are sometimes overlooked yet can spell the difference between a successful and less than successful exercise.
3. Identify indirect coordinators – A number of coordinators need to be identified and made available for the fire drill. One or more may coordinate the efforts of the external agencies. One or more others will coordinate activities of the internal departments. Many companies have employees who serve as members of an internal emergency safety response team (ESRT). There will usually be one or more coordinators who will work with ESRT members who will be participating in the fire drill.
4. Assign roles and responsibilities – Fire drills may have up to 20 to 30 individuals participating in various roles. These roles and their corresponding responsibilities need to be assigned, agreed to and fully understood by those who will be enacting them. One role is that of floor sweepers who ensure everyone has safely evacuated the building. Another is that of observer to record the time, orderliness and any anomalies in the evacuation. External agencies, including the fire marshal, will also have specific roles and responsibilities to carry out.
5. Select optimal time, with minimal awareness – Planners should select a time for the fire drill that ensures maximum participation by employees. For many companies this will mean a mid-week day, and a mid-morning or mid-afternoon time of event. Regardless of the time selected, planners should minimize the number of people who are actually aware of the exact date and time to ensure maximum realism.
6. Conduct briefing just prior to fire drill – By the day of the exercise all of the participants should be aware of who they are and what their roles and responsibilities are. It is a good idea to conduct one final briefing just prior to the exercise to ensure everyone is aware of their duties and to discuss any last minutes that may have arisen.
7. Observe, observe, observe – Once the fire drill begins the best for all the participants is to observe closely what is going on. This does not mean to offer advice or guidance, but to silently observe what seems to going well and what may be going awry. Make note of such things as how long it takes to evacuate, how orderly it was, and if people knew what to take, what to leave behind and where to congregate after exiting the building.
8. Conduct lessons learned immediately after – The best time to identify the lessons learned from a fire drill is immediately after the exercise concludes. It pays to schedule the session ahead of time, preferably at the same time that you decide on the date and time of the exercise. All principal participants should be included, and all should be asked two questions: what do they think went well? And what do they think could be done better?
9. Analyze and share results – The quickest way to prioritize and analyze the lessons learned is ask participants to identify their top four or five responses, assign a decreasing point value to each response (for example, top pick gets five points, second pick gets four points and so on) and then compile the results. This will give two prioritized lists of what went well and what can be done better.
10. Follow-up with improvements and corrective actions – Once the results have been complied, analyzed and shared with the participants, improvement suggestions and corrective actions can be identified. These items should then be assigned, scheduled and tracked to completion. Their application to future fire drills should help ensure even more success.

Employing these ten tips should help to make any fire drill in which you participate more effective and successful. We all sincerely hope that we never have to exercise these practices in an actual disaster, but being prepared for such an event is always the best strategy. Knowing how to safely and efficiently evacuate a work facility, regardless of it being a small office building, a warehouse, a high-rise skyscraper or a manufacturing center can calm the chaos, reduce fears, lower insurance costs, minimize injuries and potentially save lives. That is one of the strongest and most worthwhile business cases that any manager could make.