What is the difference between an Incident Management Policy (IMP) and an Incident Response Plan (IRP)?

The IMP is the high-level, binding policy that sets the rules, roles and responsibilities; the IRP is the detailed operational plan for how to actually handle an incident.

These two documents ideally define incident management in an organisation. The Incident Management Policy (IMP) is the overarching, binding document: it sets the framework conditions, defines roles and responsibilities (and authorises the incident response team), and governs communication channels and behaviour. The Incident Response Plan (IRP) is the detailed playbook: for a real incident it spells out the operational tasks of each role, what to do, and how incidents are handled in practice. Switzerland's national point of contact for such guidance is GovCERT, run by the NCSC.

Tip: IMP = the "what and who" (policy); IRP = the "how" (procedure).