Showing posts with label Business Continuity Planning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Business Continuity Planning. Show all posts

November 6, 2015

Are We Ready For Anything?

So contingency planning is a critical part of risk management.

You never know what can happen in life...

So you must have a solid business continuity plan (BCP) and disaster recovery plan (DRP). 

That way in case of natural disaster or terror attack--we are prepared!

So what was really sad-funny this week was when I became aware of an annual contingency planning exercise that was being conducted as a table-top exercise--that's legit. 

It was well-planned, scripted to really challenge the participants, and I heard it went very well.

But then just that evening as it turned out there was a real contingency.

What happened?

Everyone was working well to address what happened and how to fix it and kudos to some super great people. 

The only problem was no one seemed to really know or was following what to do from a contingency plan perspective.

In the end everything turned out fine, but it was incredible how planning and training can deviate so far from real life. 

It's like in school, when administrators conduct fire drills for the teachers and students and everyone gets up like good boys and girls and goes out in an orderly fashion, maybe even in a nice buddy system, but then when G-d forbid there is a real fire, everyone starts screaming and running crazed for the exits. 

Perhaps table top exercises should be thrown out the window and testing should be conducted with realistic scenarios and under mandated lifelike circumstances. 

Instead of smoke and mirror planning, we need serious preparation for the day when it isn't child's play or cool drawings on the whiteboard only. ;-)

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Sharyn Morrow)
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