The recovery time objective (RTO) is a dynamic number, one with several implications. It not only tells us when we have to be back in business, but it also implies how we should develop and write our plans. To understand the RTO, we should first understand what happens during a disaster (from a financial point… Continue reading RTO’s Role In Recovery Planning

How organizations should conceptualize, assess, architect, and validate a plan for true enterprise resilience. Today’s business environment is characterized by rapid, unpredictable changes – some of which present opportunities, others that introduce challenges and sometimes even threats. Irrespective of circumstance, it’s imperative that businesses be responsive and resilient – seamlessly taking advantage of opportunities while… Continue reading Beyond Disaster Recovery

The past seven years have forced information technology professionals from industry and government to embrace the devastating and costly realities that result from both deliberate (e.g., man-made) and natural disasters. The catastrophic terrorist attacks of 9/11, as well as natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina and the most recent Iowa and Midwestern floods, have proven to… Continue reading An Evolving View of Collaborative Risk Management

I had to comment on Thejendra’s article on earthquake prediction in the Fall 2008 issue. Seeing stuff like this scares me. Although we don’t have to “worry” about being able to predict earthquakes with any meaningful precision or accuracy, the author’s purported downsides of such a warning not only are without basis, they actually contradict… Continue reading Earthquake Article Scares Emergency Manager

The Fall 2008 Disaster Recovery Journal published an article, “Why Predicting Earthquakes is a Dangerous Idea” in which the author (perhaps unwittingly) applies 19th Century reasoning against warning of tornadoes to warning of earthquakes in the 21st. While the science does not yet allow us to warn of earthquakes, at some future time that scientific… Continue reading Predicting Earthquake Rebuttal

As business continuity planners we spend a lot of time looking for risks to our client’s critical operations. We create project plans and statements of work, carefully guesstimating the time needed for each phase of the project, which is fine if everything goes according to plan. As Murphy knows, things rarely do “go according to… Continue reading If the Project Fails, the Plan Fails (Looking for Risks Before Looking for Risks)

There is a perfect storm brewing in IT – fuel costs are rising exponentially, business managers are looking for ways to cut costs to address current economic conditions, and IT departments are being asked to provide higher levels of availability than ever before with flat or even shrinking IT budgets. There is also constant pressure… Continue reading 21st Century Power and Cooling Pandemic

The Man and His Two Wives In a country where men could have more than one wife, a certain Man, whose hair was fast becoming white, had two: one older than himself and one much younger. The young wife, being of sparkling and lively spirit, did not want people to think she had an old… Continue reading Aesop’s Take On Strategy Development

At the time this column was written, the economy is a disaster. The government is faced with critical issues. The financial industry is in shambles. The U.S. automobile industry is having trouble selling cars and trucks, even with gasoline priced below $2 per gallon. The retail industry is having trouble meeting its profit objectives. The… Continue reading From The Perspective Of Ed Devlin: Economy Can Lead to Crisis Issues

The concept of private/public partnerships for emergency preparedness has received increased attention over the last decade or so. The first large-scale, methodical approach to formalize and structure such work between the two sectors at the community-wide level was “Project Impact,” which was established by FEMA, in the late 1990s. Since then, several useful models have… Continue reading Editorial Advisory Board: A Successful Model for Private-Public Partnerships