Contemplating ...

… resilience as a balancing act

Ken Simpson — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 13:46:34 +0000

I read a post on John Adams' blog which I wanted to draw to people's attention. Let me start where Adams' finishes;

"Resilience is not calculable. Unquantifiable, disputable, and disputed judgement will remain central to its pursuit."

It is becoming rare to find people thinking and writing about resilience who recognise that it is not a candidate for standardisation and p... Read more..

… synergy rather than convergence

Ken Simpson — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 13:12:10 +0000

I have recently been included in a Working Party initiated by the Busines Continuity Institute in the UK. This Working Party has the label 'Discipline Mapping' - it will focus on how a range of different disciplines can contribute to the building and maintaining resilience. A lot of the talk in this area has been around how various disciplines may/should converge going forward. In many of these discussions the idea seems to be... Read more..

… wanting your life back

Ken Simpson — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 11:44:36 +0000

Perhaps Tony Hayward (soon-to-be-former Group CEO at BP) had a valid point when he lamented the loss of his private life. Anybody who has been involved in a real crisis management role knows that it tends to absorb a lot of your time - most crises don't stop for evenings and weekends. My current BAU "Crisis Management" role is certainly absorbing my time to write. In fact it tends to absorb the available intellect... Read more..

… application of BC skills to BAU

Ken Simpson — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 09:41:06 +0000

Since returning from WCDM last month I have began a new engagement with my largest client. This role involves the application of Incident Management and Control Room discipline to the delivery of a major new IT/IS change program. The program is in the final stage of a 4 year delivery cycle, and rapid response to defects and outages is critical, along with simple (but effective) delivery of 'intelligence' to Executive... Read more..

… resilience starts at home.

Ken Simpson — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 13:17:03 +0000

We all talk a lot about the importance of the "people" aspects for Business Continuity - and it is more significant to position this aspect correctly when looking at the concept of resilience. Too often it is just talk, not really backed by understanding and appropriate actions. Often we need direct involvement in a situation to really appreciate the true meaning. We also never know exactly how we will react until the situation actually arises - exercises and training only go so far. I was exposed to the implications of trauma in a disaster situation back in 1989 after the Newcastle Eart... Read more..

… profession or not?

Ken Simpson — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 13:54:41 +0000

Things have been fairly hectic since my return from Toronto. A new client engagement to get started, not to mention a number of late nights watching the FIFA World Cup, have distracted me from posting here. While catching up on my reading I came across this article in Risk Magazine. The quoted comments are in response to the question "What do you think are the significant challenges facing the risk profession in A... Read more..

… WCDM is over

Ken Simpson — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 23:12:22 +0000

Actually it has been over for a couple of days, but I have just gotten around to writing about it. This was by first visit to the World Conference on Disaster Management. It is probably the best event in this field that I have been to - I would certainly want to go again next year, finances permitting. The blend of Emergency Management, Business Continuity, Disaster Recovery and general thought leadership in the field is something I have not seen at another conference. These guys have been going for 20 years for a reason, and that is quality. Day 3 had no concurrent sessions, only ple... Read more..

… WCDM Day 2

Ken Simpson — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 13:23:10 +0000

Another smorgasbord of sessions today - 8 concurrent sessions in each of 4 time slots, plus 2 Plenary Sessions. Unfortunately there is always more than 1 session in each time slot I would have liked to attend. The sessions, both yesterday and today, are organised into streams; Real Events / Lessons Learned Technical Issues / R&D The Human Element Future Trends Practice & Principles Emergency Health Resiliency Pandemic Planning My session yesterday was in the Practice and Principles st... Read more..

… WCDM Day 1

Ken Simpson — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 12:40:42 +0000

So much to choose from, 9 current presentations in each time slot - plus the various plenary sessions. Highlights of the day for me were the presentation by Robert Kay, conversation around the table at lunch and of course my own presentation. Robert Kay is an Australian and is not part of the BC/EM community. He spoke about stakeholder engagement and the need to understand different organisational dynamics and the way in which people from with different backgrounds and training actually understand an perceive risk differently - and he had some great funny stories at the expense of actuar... Read more..

… World Conference on Disaster Management

Ken Simpson — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 12:11:24 +0000

The past week I have been on holiday, making my way to Toronto for the Conference. The sessions here kicked off Sunday afternoon with a workshop - was looking forward to this as an opportunity to meet John Bircham from New Zealand. I have read a lot of his writing on the net, and he has some very interesting insights - the workshop lived up to expectations. Looking at risks that will never appear on a risk register or a dashboard. An interesting review of systemic risk and how these are invisible to our existing Risk Management processes. It was fascinating at the Speakers Reception t... Read more..