Every question we are asked about crisis management, business continuity, our five service lines, and working with Left of Boom, answered in one place.
“Left of boom” is military shorthand for the period before an explosion or incident - when there is still a chance to prepare and avert a crisis. Left of Boom uses the phrase as the name of its crisis preparedness and response framework. Read the full explanation →
Crisis management is the process by which an organisation deals with a disruptive and unexpected event that threatens its people, operations, or reputation, including how leadership makes decisions, communicates, and coordinates a response.
Incident management deals with operational response to a specific event as it unfolds. Crisis management sits above this, covering strategic decision-making, communications, and stakeholder management when an event threatens the wider organisation. Business continuity focuses on keeping critical business functions running, or recovering them, during and after disruption. Most organisations need plans for all three, working together.
Most engagements start with a review of existing arrangements, move into plan development and training, and can extend into on-call response support. See our Services page for the five service lines.
Left of Boom has supported clients across mining, energy, superannuation, insurance, transport and logistics, healthcare, stadiums and large events, infrastructure, manufacturing, essential services, and retail.
Left of Boom is based in Australia and has supported crisis events across Australia, New Zealand, and internationally, including responses tied to global events such as the early stages of the Ukraine war and Solomon Islands unrest.
A Crisis Management Review assesses arrangements that haven't yet been tested by a real event. A Post-Incident Review assesses how those arrangements actually performed during a real event, across every response layer involved. See the Review service line →
A review involves document assessment, stakeholder interviews, and a gap analysis against a recognised methodology, delivered as a report with prioritised recommendations that become the basis for plan development.
Timeframes depend on organisational complexity and the number of participants to interview and survey. Get in touch for a scope and timeline specific to your organisation.
For critical infrastructure owners and major hazard facilities, yes - a post-incident review can satisfy annual exercise obligations.
A Crisis Management Plan sets out how leadership makes decisions, communicates, and coordinates a response when an event threatens people, operations, or reputation. A Business Continuity Plan focuses on how specific business functions keep operating, or recover, during disruption. Many organisations hold both, and Left of Boom can also deliver them as a single combined plan. See the Plan service line →
Yes, ideally. A BIA Workshop identifies critical functions, dependencies, and recovery objectives that form the evidence base a Business Continuity Plan is built on.
PERSCORE is Left of Boom's framework for strategic risk workshops, assessing impacts across eight domains: People, Environment, Reputational, Systems, Community and Customers, Operations, Regulatory, and Economic.
IMT training prepares teams to manage an incident at the operational level - on site, in real time. CMT training prepares the team responsible for strategic decisions, communications, and stakeholder management once an incident escalates to threaten the wider organisation. The two are designed to integrate with each other. See the Train service line →
The individuals who hold Crisis Management Team roles in your organisation, typically senior executives and the functional leads who support them (legal, communications, HR, operations).
A CMT Desktop Exercise tests the Crisis Management Team on its own, in a facilitated discussion format. A Full Scale Mock Simulation links site operations, contractors and partners, and the corporate crisis team in one real-time scenario, testing the interface between the Incident Management Team and the Crisis Management Team as well as each team individually. See the Exercise service line →
Most organisations benefit from at least an annual exercise cycle, with more frequent desktop sessions for teams with higher turnover or elevated risk exposure. Regulated critical infrastructure owners and major hazard facilities may have a specific annual obligation, which a Post-Incident Review can also satisfy in the year an incident occurs.
A virtual war room is a remote-access setup that lets your crisis management team activate and coordinate a response even if your usual facilities or IT systems are unavailable, using pre-established access to plans, contact lists, and communication tools. See the Response service line →
Response speed depends on your existing arrangement. Clients with a standing on-call arrangement get the fastest activation, since Left of Boom already holds current access to their plans, procedures, and contacts. Contact us to set this up before you need it.
Both, but the business impact is usually the larger and longer-lasting issue. IT contains the technical threat. The business - executives, legal, communications, and operations - manages the consequences for customers, regulators, and reputation. Read more on this →
