Author: Jim Mitchell

Organizations in which emergencies, crisis and disruptions are, if not common, frequent, are likely to have an Emergency Management department, team or group.  Public Utilities, Energy, Transportation (especially aviation) and Government agencies, among others, are all likely to maintain Emergency Management functions. Emergency Management (EM) and Business Continuity Management (BCM) have principles in common.  You […]

What can you do when Business Continuity Plan owners fail to update their Plans? I previously discussed why some organizations struggle – or simply neglect – to update their BIA data.  A BIA can be like a Platypus (an Australian mammal – part duck/beaver/reptile – that lays eggs).  Designed by a committee, a BIA may […]

Call them what you wish – justifications, rationales, excuses; there are plenty of reasons that organizations large and small fail to create or maintain Business Continuity Plans.  Even having a BC program doesn’t assure that development of Plans across the enterprise gets full cooperation.  Maybe you’ve heard some of these justifications in your own organization: […]

The old conundrum “which came first, the chicken or the egg?” reminds me of an often-heard Business Continuity statement: “We’ve got a Business Continuity Plan, so we’re covered.” Perhaps you don’t see the similarity.  The chicken/egg question is largely unanswerable (although there are always those who believe they know the true answer).  The other question […]

Most of us have gotten used to our rapidly-changing world.  OK, perhaps ‘gotten used to’ is the wrong term; maybe “learned to live with’ would be more appropriate for non-Millennials.  It wasn’t that long ago that PC’s had memories measured in Mb’s; today’s Smart phone has more memory than the Apollo 11 capsule that first […]

Recovery Time Objective.  Anyone who deals with Business Continuity or Disaster Recovery – as a planner, responder or auditor – is familiar with the term.  It appears in every Business Continuity Management (BCM) ‘Standard’.  It is the generally-accepted benchmark by which BCM programs measure both goals and achievement. Recovery Time Objective (RTO) has be around […]