Category: Business Continuity

After more than 20-some years of analysis and observation of BCM programs, patterns have emerged.  Some programs have been very successful, while some never quite achieved much – and others withered away.  From those observations, here are 5 common, very simple reasons why too many BCM programs fail to prosper.  I’m certain there are others.  […]

This is the 2nd in a series of articles examining the “myths” of today’s Business Continuity Management industry. The emergence of “Cloud” technologies in the past decade has created both benefits and risks.  Whether simply backing critical data up in the cloud, moving applications there, or implementing a full-fledged DRaaS (Disaster Recovery as a Service) […]

Assumptions can be the downfall of even the best Business Continuity Plan (we’ve addressed that issue in an early blog).  Sometimes it’s not the overt assumptions we make (“All critical IT systems will be available within 4 hours of the disruption.“) but the ones we don’t realize we’ve made that may jeopardize our ability to recover – or […]

When a disruptive incident impacts critical national or regional infrastructure, or when public safety is at stake, multiple emergency agencies are often involved in the response. Those responders could be from federal or state agencies as well as local teams of EMT’s, police, firefighters and other volunteers.  Emergency response organizations specialize in a certain aspect […]

What would you do if the files you rely on every day were unavailable? Most of us become accustomed to storing much of the data we use – spreadsheets, forms, slide packs, photos and other documents – on ‘shared files’.  Whether it’s on a corporate “S: drive” or a SharePoint site, information stored on shared […]

There are many products and services on the market today designed to help notify the right people with (hopefully) the right messages in the event of disruption of day-to-day operations. Yet we in Business Continuity (and Emergency Management, Crisis Management and ITDR) spend little time, money or effort streamlining how we receive intelligence about events […]

(NOTE: This is second part of the 6th in a series of articles discussing the future of Business Continuity Management.  The series starts here.) Business Process Prioritization As some point (presumably when determining BCM Objectives) the underlying goals of BCM must be made clear.  Objectives become the guideposts for determining Process Recovery prioritization.  Those business […]