I had titled this post what’s the point of business continuity but thought better of it. In response to the question there are a number of answers but I fear they do not appreciate the real benefit of the practice. Let us start with the basic response, it helps your business/organisation recover from foreseen and unforeseen events in a manner that protects your primary stakeholders.

Now on the face of it this is not a bad definition and is clearly aligned to the interests of most practitioners out in the field. However, it is doubtful that this captures a real sense of the benefits which continuity can provide. There are much newer definitions that attempt to include the latest buzz words (“resilience” anyone) but again these fall far short of what we are capable of achieving.

If you maintain the first definition, you can quickly get into a position where plans and more plans becomes the order of the day. A lot of heat is generated but I would suggest very little light. As I have stated previously, the generation of a plan is not a material expression of a more resilient business. I fear for those who sleep easy at night thinking they have a business that is now more resilient due to generation of paper, when in fact the same problems continue to exist.

At the back end of last year I began to talk about predictability and its relationship to resilience. Indeed I made the statement that the executive does not want resilience they want predictability. To be clear, I am not suggesting that the executive are not interested in resilience, simply that it is not the goal. Resilience is simply a means by which predictability can be delivered. When defining a business strategy or business plan, the executive must make a number of assumptions when mapping the road ahead. Discounting the lane changing that often occurs (a metaphor too far?) these assumptions are the bumps in the road ahead.

I believe that business continuity as a practice is about smoothing out these bumps either by identifying them early and steering around them or by preparing the organisation to absorb them. To absorb the bump requires the business to be agile (see earlier post What Every Executive Wants For Christmas). In doing so the executive end up with a much more resilient business which provides them with a greater level of predictability. To do this means delivering more than a stack of reports, but making the evaluation and mitigation of risk a business as usual activity. Business continuity, is simply good business practice.

Related posts:

1. What Every Executive Wants For Christmas
2. What is Resilience?
3. Predictability – Measuring Resilience Part 3

Since I took a break from the blog there have been some interesting posts from other bloggers, that I have only recently had time to catch up on. One which caught my eye was from the the Business Continuity Guru Blog by John Ames entitled BCP Documentation – Keep It Simple & Uniform. In this post John asserts that software is causing much frustration amongst his small and medium sized clients and that the solution to this is a much simpler approach using standard templates. I can sympathise with his client’s frustration, but doubt that software is the issue, although there is clearly some truly badly designed software out there.

So first let me take issue with one half of John’s solution, although I will add a caveat at the end of this paragraph. I certainly agree with a simpler approach to the planning process and have indeed promoted this on the ABC blog in previous posts. I would however take issue with the idea of uniform plans. It is not that I believe that each part of a business should have different types of plan, but rather some areas require more detail than other areas. I don’t believe that my own perspective on this and John’s are that far off, but I do worry that uniformity merely leads to that old tickbox culture that we are all busy fighting. Aren’t we? Promoting the idea that “fill in this set of documents and your done” benefits no one, except of course those who promote such ideas. The caveat on this is of course that John seems to deal in the small and medium sized organisations who need a much lighter touch than larger organisations. In these types of organisation John’s cookie cutter approach will almost certainly develop a more beneficial output, although it may not be optimum.

On the software issue, as you may already know, I disagree that software is the root of all evil. As I have said before, if software is not providing a material benefit then it is likely the wrong software. With a single stroke many practitioners paint business continuity as not benefiting from software optimisation, and I find this a little hard to believe. The suggestion that we don’t need software is often followed by an assertion that all you need is … Word and Excel … or as I like to call it … software. Now that you are using Word and Excel, can you imagine one small feature that could be added to your Word and Excel system that would make your clients life easier, simpler and more cost effective. Great, now imagine another, and another … and possibly another.

I have seen the disasterous concequences of the application of a Word, Excel based solution. Indeed, I have a number of clients who have previously spent vast quantities of money implementing such a solution only to find that they have made no material difference to the resilience of their organisation. I am not suggesting that software is a panacea (software never is), but suspect that in terms of this argument, it may simply be a useful diversion from other issues. Rather than blaming the software tools (or Word templates) it may be time to understand that some Business Continuity practices are the problem.

On a side note, here is my favourite section of John’s post:

Ask yourself the following questions. What does the content of your documentation reveal? How is the document organized? Can you (or someone other than the planner) follow the defined path for response, resumption and recovery? Just how effective would the documentation be if you actually had to utilize it?

I couldn’t agree more John, if only more people asked these questions, how much more resilient the world would be.

Related posts:

1. Can Software Support Your Resilience?

At the back end of last week I had one of the most surprising discussions that I’ve had over the past few months. I found myself with a well respected business continuity consultant who I agreed with. Moreover I had a few things to learn from him. Please don’t assume that I believe I have nothing to learn, it’s just that I meet so many people who have nothing new to say. As I’ve said before I have little time for some of the very poor work being done in the area of continuity and to meet an individual who shared my frustration was a surprising event.

Most of the conversations I have are generally prepended with the opposing contributor stating how long they have been doing continuity and how wonderful they are. I agree that history is an indicator of future performance, but believe me it is by no means a guarantee. From time to time I have been called in to troubleshoot situations left by other consultants, so I find myself understanding exactly what some of my colleagues are capable of delivering.

It was therefore so refreshing to meet someone who is well respected and has been in the business for many years, but was actually trying to help his clients deliver resilience. I hope I get the chance to work with this person in the future, I think I have much to learn from them.

Related posts:

1. Continuity Dashboard – Measuring Resilience Part 2
2. Continuity Insurance Business Model

Hello to all. The beginning of this year has been interesting for me to say the least. I’ve been busy with clients and work so have failed to pick the blog back up as I had hoped. So my Christmas holiday from the blog ended up being a little longer than expected. I also transferred the blog to another hosting company which took a little longer than I expected.

All of that doesn’t mean I haven’t been busy writing. I have numerous notes, experiences and observations I would like to share. So welcome to the Agile Business Continuity Blog continued. Since I keep a paper based journal, I will be dipping in to that and doing a little back posting, so you may want to keep an eye out for new past posts.

Related posts:

1. Welcome to the ABC Blog
2. Business Continuity Podcasts
3. Business Continuity Programme Management

Okay so I know it has little to do with business continuity, perhaps disaster recovery. I just wanted to share my love of Google and their services. I’ve been using these services for years to maintain my private email, calendar, etc. In my business life I work remotely most of the time and am rarely in the office which used to mean VPNing (is it a verb … it is now) back to the office. I’ve finally moved my team over to the Google Cloud. Take a look for yourself at Google Apps For Business.

No related posts.

Well on returning to the blog I find that I have a real incident to write about (something which is thankfully few and far between). I was approached a couple of days before Christmas to help a business find new premises. It had to be done and completed by 5th January, so that in essence the business was fully up and running when everyone returned from their Christmas break. Oh and did I mention that a large part of the business did not have any contingency or continuity planning in place.

So the question is how do you begin to organise such a task. Remember that because this occurred over the Christmas and New Year break with the number of working days between the initiation of the incident and the planned resolution was approximately 4 days. A fairly tall order for any size of business, especially when it is entirely unplanned. So could we do it, did we do it ….

Well of course we did. Of course on the 5th January the company had not returned to a business as usual state, but it was in a position to trade with minimal impact on it’s clients. So what behaviours of this business allowed it to turn the situation around in such a small period of time:

• Great management with a GTD attitude
• Great relationship with employees
• Great relationships with clients
• Great relationships with partners and local business network

In the next blog post I’ll discuss a significant issue that came up during this incident and why BCM would have helped.

Related posts:

1. Lipstick Rolldown
2. Must Follow Resilience Blogs For 2010
3. A Christmas Message From Agile Continuity

Today is the official birthday of the Agile Business Continuity blog. It has been a great year discussing an important but often neglected topic. It is also been fantastic to see so many new blogs pop up over the past six months and I look forward to discussing the subject with them over the next year. So Happy Birthday to me and a happy New Year to you all.

Related posts:

1. A Christmas Message From Agile Continuity
2. Must Follow Resilience Blogs For 2010

Here is a round up of posts for December 2009. Enjoy!

Related posts:

1. Must Follow Resilience Blogs For 2010
2. November 2009 Roundup
3. Blogosphere Focus: Jan Husdal's husdal.com

With the end of 2009 almost upon us it is often time for reflection on the year gone by and preparation for the year to come. I would like to take this opportunity to thank my readers for taking the time to visit the blog. A special thanks to those who took the time to comment, as feedback is always appreciated. This blog will be one year old in January and the growth in readers has been extraordinary, especially over the last four months. So again, thank you for taking the time to read my various rants and riffs.

I won’t be actively posting for the next couple of weeks, but that doesn’t mean that I won’t be busy. I will be taking the time to refresh the blog and add some new features. There is also some new content which I have been busy preparing ready for 2010.

In the meantime, a very merry Christmas to you all and a happy and prosperous New Year. I look forward to continuing the discussion in 2010.

Related posts:

1. Must Follow Resilience Blogs For 2010
2. How To Join The Resilience Conversation
3. The Return of a Business Continuity Blog

The Agile Continuity Blog will be one year old in January and during this time I have gathered a huge list of related blogs and online resources. One of the features I introduced a couple of weeks ago was the BlogoSphere Focus which allowed me to explore a number of useful blogs in the resilience domain. I will be continuing this series into next year, but in the meantime here are a number of blogs which you should be reading in 2010.

• Blogosphere Focus: Jan Husdal’s husdal.com
• Blogosphere Focus: Alex Fullick’s Stoneroad Blog
• Blogosphere Focus: Ken Simpson’s Contemplating

Related posts:

1. December 2009 Roundup
2. A Christmas Message From Agile Continuity
3. Blogosphere Focus: Ken Simpson's Contemplating