EDITOR’S NOTE: This six-part series explores Adaptive Business Continuity, a framework that deliberately challenges traditional business continuity assumptions and restructures how preparedness and resilience are achieved.
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There is nothing within the Adaptive Business Continuity Principles which requires priorities or objectives for recovery be defined. This does not mean work within the Adaptive world cannot be prioritized in some fashion. Just not for recovery purposes.
It feels logical to assume what is important today will be just as important during or after the storm. However, experience and evidence strongly support a different conclusion: priorities will change.
This means new priorities may have to be determined in the face of complex and chaotic circumstances. This is great news! When determining where to start on one’s Adaptive Business Continuity journey, it is no longer necessary to determine what is “critical.” Instead, are several factors one can consider. On the other hand, I believe there are two that matter most.
1. Leadership
The primary driver for our work should be leadership’s direction. There may be specific parts of the organization that require focus. This could be driven by revenue, strategic priorities, risk, past failures, audit findings or known gaps and areas of concern. The justification should not be the concern so much as the awareness there is an expectation, by decision-makers, which some portion of the organization will receive more immediate attention. If such an expectation exists then you have an obvious starting point.
2. Engagement
Barring specific direction, the next consideration should be what works best for you, the practitioner. The start of this process is where you will learn the most. Problems and failures could arise along the way. That means changes will undoubtedly be necessary. For this reason, it makes the most sense to start where you have the greatest degree of engagement and support. The areas of the organization most willing to participate in the learning process and experiment along with you should be your initial areas of focus.
When improving capabilities
The primary driver for assessing capabilities is to improve them. There will almost certainly be plenty of opportunities to do just that, making it necessary to determine what improvement actions to prioritize. Start where the picking is easy. This means anything that can be done with minimal effort and little or no cost. Your goal is to improve, not to improve in a specific manner or to a certain degree. Avoid committing to specific levels of improvement and you can take small, incremental steps in the satisfaction of that goal. The big challenges will always be there, and you may be surprised at the magnitude of impact you can have with relatively little effort.
It is not uncommon for improvement to occur even without the involvement of the practitioner. Intervention may become necessary, but it doesn’t always require significant effort. As mentioned in the previous article, sometimes all that is needed is a nudge, a little encouragement or a suggestion. Just as there is a multitude of contributors to response and recovery capability there are many paths to improvement. Just keep two things in mind:
1. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.
Remember, capability existed even before you started this process and you are only looking to improve. Making changes gradually and incrementally is the best way to ensure those changes stick. Go too quickly and you may end up having to revisit past improvements because they were not properly socialized or practiced. This leads to the next thing.
2. Check your progress.
You are in unchartered territory and organizations are complex systems. The actions you believe will result in improved capability may not have the outcome you expect. This is especially true if you go too fast or don’t allow changes to be properly internalized. Making multiple, simultaneous changes may mean they interact in unexpected ways. If capability does not improve or goes down, it will be difficult to determine which change or combination of changes had a negative effect.
It can be tempting to act fast, particularly if there are a number of relatively easy improvements to be made. However, “slow and deliberate” has its advantages. Today’s environments change at a quick enough pace as it is. You can probably expect to revisit some improvements due to turnover or other changes in the environment that can negatively impact your progress. Anticipate setbacks but don’t lose heart.
When more is needed
Sooner or later, it will become necessary to take more significant action. This means you are past the point of letting improvement take place organically or with minimal effort on your part. From this point on, deliberate action will be needed. This may take multiple forms: requesting budget for resources; ensuring time is available for practice and learning; getting initiatives off the ground; or defining and communicating authority.
At this stage, we should remember we have not prioritized services. Nor should we. There may be a multiple actions that can be taken to improve capability. Rather than prioritizing the business service, improvement actions themselves should be prioritized. This is particularly true when action can be taken that improves capabilities across multiple services. When viewed this way, our efforts are not segmented by service, department or team but, instead, by the relative cost and benefit of the initiative itself!
As always, these are opportunities to engage. The managers of the teams and departments you work with are in the best position to determine what actions will provide the greatest benefit. Cost decisions will be driven by whomever has the appropriate budget authority. If that means going further up the management chain, then your responsibility is to act as an advocate for line-level managers, supervisors and front-line staff. But also listen to leadership. Provide levers for them to pull and be willing to step back and let priorities emerge if it becomes necessary.
Priorities don’t necessarily reflect what is most important. It could be that funds are limited or needed elsewhere in the organization. Leaders may wish to take the least obtrusive steps, initially, in order to see the improvements before investing greater effort. This is an ongoing and evolutionary process, and we should be willing to trust in it as a means to continuous engagement. As improvements are realized, they should be shared as proven practices elsewhere in the organization and with leaders as evidence of the value being delivered.
There will be initiatives that do not move forward due to cost and effort. As easier work efforts are undertaken, there should be ample opportunity to share results. Over time, events may occur which demonstrate the capability that exists and the positive impact the program has had on outcomes. These should always be used to escalate discussions. Where data exists to justify investments and to move the program further, it can be used to engage further up the management chain. Not every request will be approved but these are still opportunities to share information as well as to learn.
When the event comes
Not all teams, departments and functions will have the same level of capability. In addition, disruptive and disastrous events will always come with unpredictable consequences. This is why additional resources, support and focus may be needed during an event to speed or improve recovery for specific parts of the organization. That’s the nature of our discipline. The impact of any event is going to be unpredictable. Our work should not be about anticipating every possible outcome for the purpose of defining specific response and recovery strategies. Our work should be about boosting the capabilities the organization already has while enabling it to operate in a nimble, reactive fashion. Defined strategies are one small part, and the execution should not be driven by a script but by the authority and competence of the team along with the resources available to them.
Teams, departments and divisions, plus the services they cumulatively deliver, can always be recovered given enough time and resources. If we’re doing our jobs effectively, we can demonstrate the benefits of improved capability in reducing the pain and difficulty of dealing with disruptions. Ideally, we should help teams to obtain and better leverage resources. We ensure time is made available for learning and practice. We help leaders to build and demonstrate trust and to clearly define authority so individuals can take the initiative when called upon to do so. The net result, teams will respond independently and in parallel with one another when faced with unforeseen losses. When we relinquish control and act as collaborators and facilitators, we empower the teams we work with to take charge of their own preparedness. This is a force-multiplier in effective response!
Summary
The capability assessment and improvement process is an opportunity to continuously engage. We should treat it that way. When engaging those on the front line, this means providing them with an understanding of the contributors to response and recovery capability and where they can take accountability for their own improvement. At the middle-management level, this is about setting expectations and coordinating efforts across teams. For leadership engagement, it is about providing data which can be used for additional consideration in defining strategic objectives and activities. Each is an opportunity to demonstrate value and contribute to better outcomes. Use it.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mark Armour
Mark Armour is a resilience industry leader with more than 20 years of experience in the field. He has been instrumental in the implementation and leadership of several global business continuity and crisis management programs. More importantly, Armour has been directly involved in corporate response and recovery for hundreds of events, from IT outages and natural disasters to pandemics. Armour is the co-author, along with David Lindstedt, Ph.D., of the “Adaptive Business Continuity Manifesto” and the book, “Adaptive Business Continuity: A New Approach.” He is currently the senior director of global resilience at Brink’s Inc., the worldwide leader in secure logistics and cash management solutions.
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