It’s that time of year again. Organizations are putting a bookmark to 2019 and preparing for 2020. Closing the books. Last-minute Compliance items and Audit remediations. Trying to get everything done in the wake of the team parties, business area parties, enterprise parties… and employee personal lives. |
Your Business Continuity, Risk Management and related programs can get side-tracked during the holiday rush. People are “too busy” to participate. Budget money might not be available (or conversely, budgets might have final ‘use it or lose it’ funds). However, this essential business enabler should not be neglected. Your employees, your customers, your brand, and potentially your organization’s long-term viability depend on it. For regulated enterprises and those subject to customer due diligence or contractual obligation, evidence of a current and working program is not elective but mandatory.
Here are two high-value low-investment end-of-year activities to keep your Business Continuity programs on track and ready to face the unexpected in 2020!
Exercises
Winter presents significant potential for business interruptions and outages. In many parts of the world, winter weather and Acts of Nature can impact operations from commuting to shipping to increased chance of power outages. A Pandemic can cause mass employee absenteeism – can your organization fulfill its brand promise when a third of the staff is home sick and incapacitated? The threats of cyber, terror and the rest do not take a winter holiday.
Exercises can be essential in helping management anticipate these threats and minimize their effect. Management can gain comfort that the plan has been practiced and the team is competent and confident. Exercises, when properly performed, can be more than mere “Just in Case” practice and validation of plan contents. They can be valuable training and leadership development opportunities. A properly facilitated exercise gives participants a safe environment where they can work through moving with fuzzy and imperfect/fast-breaking information, forced collaboration with colleagues they don’t normally work with, thinking two moves ahead, thinking around corners, and other skills that are not only for Just in Case, but skills they will use every day.
External resources can be invaluable here. This is not an admission of incompetence of the internal team – it’s an affirmation and complement to them. A third party can bring experience and perspective from many other organizations and situations that the internal team might not have. An outsider can have fresh eyes on the organization and can know to ask the questions that the internal team might be too close to the situation to think of. External facilitation also solves the paradox of ‘self-testing’. An independent unbiased analysis of the exercise and a third-party report can have an imprimatur more authoritative than an internal memo. Also very important – a non-employee can deliver the difficult messages to executive management that an employee might find impolitic to say.
Assessment
Your program – every program – can run the risk of getting stale. Technology evolves – is the program contemplating the latest and greatest enablers? Approaches also evolve – is the program following legacy practices or adapting to more efficient and effective methodologies? Solutions also evolve – the responses and solution options of yesterday might not be the best to use today. How can you discover these opportunities?
Note that an Assessment is different from an Audit. An Audit examines controls and measures a program to a documented standard. An Assessment provides a subjective evaluation or appraisal, and a comparison to what Good looks like. Also note: your program might be in compliance to a standard and still not be effective or Good; and, a program does not have to measurably follow a standard to be leading-practice.
Just like for exercises, use of an external resource can deliver a valuable assessment. A third party with sufficient broad experience can compare your program to the best of the best… and the less-than-best. An independent party can spot things that the internal team might be too close to notice. A good assessor will not only point out gaps and improvement opportunities but also highlight the positives, affirming what the internal team is doing right. A proper assessment should not only point out observations but also include a road-map of how to get from Here to Good, helping the enterprise to budget and prioritize for the coming year.
Hopefully this article has given you something to think about. The Christmas season can be a great opportunity for organizations to take quick high-value low-investment action to reduce risk, safeguard employees, protect brand, and fulfill their promise to stakeholders.
Ready to get started? Contact us here!
Here are two high-value low-investment end-of-year activities to keep your Business Continuity programs on track and ready to face the unexpected in 2020!
Exercises
Winter presents significant potential for business interruptions and outages. In many parts of the world, winter weather and Acts of Nature can impact operations from commuting to shipping to increased chance of power outages. A Pandemic can cause mass employee absenteeism – can your organization fulfill its brand promise when a third of the staff is home sick and incapacitated? The threats of cyber, terror and the rest do not take a winter holiday.
Exercises can be essential in helping management anticipate these threats and minimize their effect. Management can gain comfort that the plan has been practiced and the team is competent and confident. Exercises, when properly performed, can be more than mere “Just in Case” practice and validation of plan contents. They can be valuable training and leadership development opportunities. A properly facilitated exercise gives participants a safe environment where they can work through moving with fuzzy and imperfect/fast-breaking information, forced collaboration with colleagues they don’t normally work with, thinking two moves ahead, thinking around corners, and other skills that are not only for Just in Case, but skills they will use every day.
External resources can be invaluable here. This is not an admission of incompetence of the internal team – it’s an affirmation and complement to them. A third party can bring experience and perspective from many other organizations and situations that the internal team might not have. An outsider can have fresh eyes on the organization and can know to ask the questions that the internal team might be too close to the situation to think of. External facilitation also solves the paradox of ‘self-testing’. An independent unbiased analysis of the exercise and a third-party report can have an imprimatur more authoritative than an internal memo. Also very important – a non-employee can deliver the difficult messages to executive management that an employee might find impolitic to say.
Assessment
Your program – every program – can run the risk of getting stale. Technology evolves – is the program contemplating the latest and greatest enablers? Approaches also evolve – is the program following legacy practices or adapting to more efficient and effective methodologies? Solutions also evolve – the responses and solution options of yesterday might not be the best to use today. How can you discover these opportunities?
Note that an Assessment is different from an Audit. An Audit examines controls and measures a program to a documented standard. An Assessment provides a subjective evaluation or appraisal, and a comparison to what Good looks like. Also note: your program might be in compliance to a standard and still not be effective or Good; and, a program does not have to measurably follow a standard to be leading-practice.
Just like for exercises, use of an external resource can deliver a valuable assessment. A third party with sufficient broad experience can compare your program to the best of the best… and the less-than-best. An independent party can spot things that the internal team might be too close to notice. A good assessor will not only point out gaps and improvement opportunities but also highlight the positives, affirming what the internal team is doing right. A proper assessment should not only point out observations but also include a road-map of how to get from Here to Good, helping the enterprise to budget and prioritize for the coming year.
Hopefully this article has given you something to think about. The Christmas season can be a great opportunity for organizations to take quick high-value low-investment action to reduce risk, safeguard employees, protect brand, and fulfill their promise to stakeholders.
Ready to get started? Contact us here!