| Given the impact of even a minor disaster happening, there is a growing awareness that businesses urgently need to develop plans that will minimize the impact of disasters should they occur. Most business owners are just thinking about major natural disasters when they think about putting together these types of plans, and therefore think that the likelihood of that happening is so low, that it gets pushed aside in favor of more pressing tasks. But the threats can come from a wide range of sources, such as: - Natural disasters, such as earthquakes, hurricanes, floods
- Fire
- Cyber attack
- Utility outage, such as power, internet connectivity, phone etc.
- Disease
- Terrorism
- Other business-specific factors, such as reliance on third party services, government legislation, or business partnerships
Sure, you can buy insurance, but that isn't going to get your business running again, and insurance companies have been known to take a long time to pay out on some claims, and there have even been cases where in large natural disasters, the insurance companies have actually gone bankrupt. So you need to have the best contingencies and plans in place yourself.
| What's Involved In Putting Together Your Business Continuity Plan? |
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| You will find that there is a lot of information available if you search the Internet for business continuity planning, emergency planning, or disaster recovery planning. There are companies that specialize in creating and testing disaster recovery plans. When you look at it, it seems like a complex (and therefore expensive) undertaking, involving a serious examination of risks and the impact of these risks given different scenarios. Unfortunately for many businesses, this is true - especially as they get larger. It is also complex in that creating a comprehensive plan involves all sorts of contingencies, and lots of dependencies on what is happening in the business at the time, so it all has to be maintained as the business grows and changes, and generates more data. These changes need to be tested and audited to ensure they are still going to be effective. Many business owners just want to try not to think about it. But like all projects, this one can be managed meaningfully if planners simply have the right tools for the task. The secret then is to plan, and to plan using tools that can show both an overview position as well as the details in a way many people can absorb quickly. Mind maps make particularly good sense given these sorts of needs. Let's look at why. |
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| Why Mind Maps Are Good For Business Continuity Planning |
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| The best-run businesses have business plans, vision statements, and/or mission statements. So they have a definition of their business. This involves defining things like the company values, target market, level of service, etc. This level of business planning is essential to create successful businesses anyway, but has the additional benefit of identifying what is most important to protect in your business continuity planning. In effect, what we are seeing are the main driving factors behind the business, and specific decisions about the direction and nature of the company, then details about what is important in making sure that the required service levels or outcomes are achieved. Anyone looking at such a visual summary will be able to determine immediately what it is that makes the company unique, and what the most important things are to keep running in the event of a disaster. So you have the benefit of the clarity of the Mind Map in helping staff, clients and investors to understand and buy into the company vision, but as a side effect, you have the starting point for your disaster recovery planning efforts. |
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| What Needs To Go In To Your Emergency Plans? |
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| For the overall company perspective, you can identify the threats / risks, impact and mitigation strategies, as well as responses should that risk come to pass. After this, you can identify the main activities and assets that need to be protected and operational, and for each one, create a Mind Map of the threats / risks, mitigation strategies and response plans. |
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| Your Risk Mitigation Mind Map |
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| Different people have vastly different approaches when it comes to risk, but even the most conservative people have some level of risk in their lives, and all business owners have a level of risk in their businesses. Some people try to avoid risk, but often that means missing out on opportunities you could benefit from, which is in itself risky. It's sort of like the saying "even if you choose not to decide, you've still made a choice". You can work on reducing the risk that the threat would impact your business by things such as contingency strategies, backup plans, alternate providers, etc. There are two main aspects of this - reducing the risk of the issue occurring, and reducing the impact if it does. For example, if flooding was a risk, you might locate your premises on high ground (reducing risk), or if a particular payment processing system was a critical factor, you may have duplicate payment processing systems in place with different providers (reducing impact). And you can transfer the risk to other people through insurance (with the caveats mentioned above about large scale disasters and slow payouts), spreading the risk over a whole business or multiple businesses, or contracting disaster recovery companies to be prepared in the case of an emergency. So for each risk, you identify the risk, note the assessment of the likelihood of it occurring, the severity if it does, and the options for mitigating the risk. The mitigation options normally fall into the categories of: avoidance, impact reduction, and transfer of risk or impact. |
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| Your Response And Recovery Mind Map |
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Your response and recovery plan must include all aspects of the recovery processes such as: - The command structure for crisis management, along with full contact details and capability profiles
- Roles and responsibilities during disaster recovery, along with full contact details and capability profiles
- Details of services and equipment available to be utilized during recovery
- Details of all the steps in the recovery process, both to get an initial basic operation up and running, and for full restoration of business
- Plans for training the staff who would be involved in the process
- Plans for testing the systems that are involved in the recovery
- Plans for maintaining and updating the recovery system, including maintaining all machinery and computers in a fully operational state.
The plans that you make should be set out in your Mind Map, and if it is a complex business operation, you would probably export it to either Merlin project manager (Mac) or MS Project (Windows) to do full task and resource Gantt charts and detailed plans. |
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| What To Do With Your Plan Once You Have Completed It |
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| Disasters and special contingencies often occur in a climate that demands fast response. If the plan itself is not one that organizational staff are likely to be very familiar with, all the more reason why you need the overview that a mind map provides. Here are some more tips of important things, some of which may seem so blatantly obvious that you'd wonder why they need stating, but let me assure you that there have been many cases where these simple things have not been followed: - Make sure the plans are where people can get them (not in a safe or locked filing cabinet)
- Keep a backup of the plan offsite - preferably a copy at the house of each of the key personnel of the company
- Make sure that all supporting data, documents and any equipment required to get up and running again is stored in a safe and accessible place
- Make sure that the staff are aware of who is in charge of the implementation of the disaster recovery plans
I sincerely hope that your plans never need to be put to the test in real life, but if they are, I hope you are well prepared and able to recover with the minimum of disruption. |
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