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At the heart of the crisis team—where the current situation is shared, the impact is assessed, bottlenecks are identified, and decisions are made—there is an unwavering presence that brings calm and structure. This is the story of the logger: the unsung hero who understands better than anyone that, under the intense pressure of a crisis meeting, a well-maintained logbook can make the difference between chaos and control.
Logging refers to the process of documenting crisis meetings. This is done by the crisis team’s logger. The logger briefly records, in concrete terms, what is discussed during the various phases of decision-making. This includes situation assessment (what is the situation), analysis (impact, bottlenecks, and possible scenarios), and decision-making (decisions and actions). In addition, the logger also tracks the status of actions: for example, whether they are “in progress” or “completed.”
The importance of logging in crisis management cannot be overstated. I’ll discuss this in more detail in this blog post, but for the sake of completeness, I’ve summarized it below.
A logbook:
In practice, the minute-taker is sometimes viewed merely as a silent note-taker, though this is far from ideal. The minute-taker should, in fact, be a full-fledged team member. A good minute-taker is assertive (and thus, in that sense, not a “silent” hero) and does not hesitate to speak up when matters are unclear—or when team members are in danger of skipping important steps in the decision-making process. A good logger plays an active role in supporting the chairperson in guiding the meeting process. In short, the logger acts as the guardian of the structure and completeness of the recorded information.
The logger and the information manager play different but complementary roles in the context of crisis management and information management. While the logger focuses on documenting the crisis meetings themselves, the information manager’s focus is on coordinating and managing all information during a crisis. As a result, the information manager plays a key role both before and after the crisis meetings.
Prior to the crisis meeting, it is the information manager’s responsibility to collect and aggregate information, both from internal sources within the organization (such as departments and other crisis teams) and from external sources (such as the situational overview prepared by the communications department and up-to-date information from the National Crisis Management System (LCMS)). This serves as input for the crisis team’s assessment during the meetings.
Following the crisis meeting, it is the information manager’s responsibility to create an up-to-date overview—a kind of management summary detailing the most recent status of affairs. This summary can be shared with the entire crisis organization and, if necessary, with other stakeholders. The logbook maintained by the logger also serves as a reliable source of information here, covering everything from the current situation to decisions made and actions taken. Together, the logger and the information manager ensure a well-organized flow of information throughout the entire crisis situation.
An effective crisis team with a competent logger benefits from structure, clarity, and a collective memory. This unsung hero therefore deserves recognition as an indispensable team member in any crisis situation.
