BCM & DR: Managing Expectations

Have you ever gotten to the end of your journey to find you’re not in the place you thought you’d be – or wanted to get to?  It’s that way for many projects and programs, including BCM/DR initiatives.  Sometimes what you intended to achieve isn’t what you end up accomplishing – if at all.

Developing and the maintaining a Business Continuity Management (BCM) / Disaster Recovery (DR) program means managing – and sometimes juggling – multiple components.  You could be juggling Business Impact Analysis (BIA) reviews while starting to plan the next major Simulation Exercise. 

BCM/DR: BCP Strategies – From Nothing to Business as Usual

Recently, I have been attending quite a few meetings regarding contingencies required for the implementation of a large project initiative.  Because it’s a new initiative and many users aren’t even assigned an ID yet to use these new systems and applications, it’s a bit hard for them to know what contingency strategies are required

Business Impact Analysis (BIA): Reviews and Timeframes

For the most part, the BCM industry states that reviews of Business Impact Analysis (BIA) findings and results are to be done on an annual basis; however, I propose that this thinking change.  It is difficult of companies of all sizes and industries, to set aside time every year to review BIA’s, let along set time and resources aside to participate in various BCM tests and plans & process reviews.

Business Impact Analysis (BIA): Organizational Integration (Project Change Impacts)

One of the major challenges for Business Continuity Management (BCM) professionals and organizations is ensuring that their Business Impact Analysis (BIA) is kept current and update to date.  The problem with keeping the BIA’s up to date is that there is no process that integrates the BIA into the existing organizational functions. 

BCM/DR: Face-to-Face Meetings

I’ve often run into people that have to ‘send an email’ with a question for a person that’s located on a few seats away.   Are they afraid of that person?  Why can’t they just get up and go see them for a couple of minutes to ask what they need to ask?  It seems the art of face-to-face communication is disappearing in favor of CYA (Cover You’re A…) and audit concerns. 

BCM / DR: Managing a Schedule

When planning our various BCM/DR components, you need to build and maintain some level of a schedule.  If you don’t have a schedule built for let’s say the BIA or the development of a Crisis Communications Plan, then Executives will never know when to expect the results and participants will continually ‘put you off’. 

BCM & DR: Mergers & Acquisitions (Part 2)

As noted in Part 1, if you’re going to be merging all areas of the two companies and the acquired will be engulfed or swallowed up by the acquiring company, then BCM/DR has a very large workload ahead of itself.  In some regards, it’ll be like starting over but you’ll know half the BCM need already.