Lately, scholars have been engaging in studies on the crossroads between collaborative public management and crisis management, but our knowledge on how organizations work together with interorganizational goals in times of crisis or in relation to the threat that crises pose, is still limited. This study aims to illuminate how interagency horizontal collaboration plays out in practice. An interview study with twenty‐three Swedish duty officers in three organizations with critical tasks in the institutional crisis management system is carried out to unearth impediments to interagency collaboration that emerge when organizations from different policy subsystems engage in crisis collaboration. Empirically, the study contributes with new knowledge on how a crucial function in crisis management carries out work and deals with challenges. Theoretically, it contributes to the literature on crisis management collaboration by shedding light on processes of horizontal collaboration in the area of crisis management.