Denise Fortner, MBCP
Showing posts with label Awareness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Awareness. Show all posts
Sunday, February 15, 2015
CA takes action to end measles outbreak
It's great to see CA responding to the measles outbreak and trying to put an end to the senseless spread of this disease.
Measles Outbreak Sparks Bid Eliminate Vaccine Exemption
Personally, I don't like the government telling people how to raise their kids, so I have some mixed feelings whether this is the answer.
However, the anti-vaccination movement based on fake science and panic puts others at risk, especially those too young to be vaccinated and pregnant women. Even if you are vaccinated, it doesn't mean you can't get the measles, it just makes it less likely that you will.
Once your personal decisions extend beyond you and your family, and put other people at risk of a disease with horrible side effects, then maybe the government has to step in.
And we do have laws about how you raise your kids: laws against leaving kids unattended, neglect in getting medical care for a child or starving them, laws against physical abuse that place limits on how a parent can 'discipline' a child, laws that state your child must be given an education.
So, as I said, I have some mixed feelings. But I think CA is right bring this up as something that can't be ignored, and hopefully it will raise awareness and cause dialog needed to end these measles outbreaks.
Saturday, February 14, 2015
Creating a Culture of Preparedness
Emergency Management Magazine has a wonderful article about embedding the business continuity process into the culture of an organization:
Tips for Creating a Culture of Preparedness
So often, this is the hardest thing to achieve in your awareness program. There are some great insights in this article.
Business Continuity Awareness Week is coming up in March, incorporate some of this advice into your plan!
Tips for Creating a Culture of Preparedness
So often, this is the hardest thing to achieve in your awareness program. There are some great insights in this article.
Business Continuity Awareness Week is coming up in March, incorporate some of this advice into your plan!
Monday, February 9, 2015
The CEO's knowledge of business continuity
Check out this great article from Continuity Central:
CEO? Here are three key business continuity questions you need to ask
So often, the CEO believes they have an understanding of business continuity that is greater than their true understanding.
Business continuity professionals need to regularly communicate with the CEO to assure they understand the risk level the company was willing to take (as identified in the last Risk Analysis), what business functions were identified as critical to the survival of the company (and what business functions weren't deemed critical), and the resources required to either maintain critical functions without interruption, or recover critical functions in the in the Recovery Time Objective (RTO) as documented in the last Business Impact Analysis - including systems, data, sites, personnel, hardware including workstations
A CEO that understood these things 2 years ago when a Risk Analysis and Business Impact Analysis were completed may not recall everything, if they aren't involved in Business Continuity on a very regular basis (such as weekly, not yearly).
Can your CEO explain what is recoverable and in what time frame? Can they explain how many people would be working from home (if able) or waiting for facilities to secure a new site that can accommodate all employees and functions?
Check out Continuity Central's article, and I'd love to know what you think.
And keep in mind that Business Continuity Awareness week is coming up in March and could be a great time to work on awareness with your CEO and upper management.
A common theme you may notice in my blogs is that I campaign hard against the idea that disaster recovery is dead (long live business resilience). Unless your RTOs for every function are zero downtime, and you have a perfect mirroring of all systems (which doesn't mean you're immune to disaster), you have work-space recovery for 100% of employees, disaster recovery is still relevant. Even if you have all of those things, you still have to deal with Crisis Communication, Emergency Response and Emergency Management, and Disaster Recovery.
There is no getting around it. Business Continuity and Business Resilience plans enhance the Disaster Recovery plan, not replace. You can't disaster-proof your business. If you could, well, a lot of us would be out of a job!
Check out my Toolbox page for some resources you may want to incorporate for Business Continuity Awareness week.
Friday, January 30, 2015
The Old Elevator Speech
Many professionals are familiar with the concept of the elevator speech: a rehearsed, persuasive, short statement that sells you, your company or your products and services, that you can use if you unexpectedly see a contact or potential customer (or employer) and only have a very brief amount of time to talk to them - like the length of time an elevator ride might take.
MindTools.com has developed guidelines for crafting an elevator speech, if you've never created one before:
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/elevator-pitch.htm
The elevator speech is a fantastic tool, one you should definitely utilize. But . . . how long has it been since you revisited your elevator speech and updated it?
Is it covered in dust?
Why not take the time this week to make it a priority to revise your elevator speech?
Got your elevator speech updated?
Ready to take it to the next level?
Many business continuity professionals have worked in their current company for years. They know all of the members of upper management, and the members of upper management have at least an average understanding of your company's business continuity program.
But you may have limited face-time with members of upper management: perhaps you see them in a weekly staff meeting where you're expected to very briefly give an update. Unless you schedule time with them, which can be challenging, you don't have a lot of opportunities to:
MindTools.com has developed guidelines for crafting an elevator speech, if you've never created one before:
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/elevator-pitch.htm
The elevator speech is a fantastic tool, one you should definitely utilize. But . . . how long has it been since you revisited your elevator speech and updated it?
Is it covered in dust?
Why not take the time this week to make it a priority to revise your elevator speech?
Got your elevator speech updated?
Ready to take it to the next level?
Many business continuity professionals have worked in their current company for years. They know all of the members of upper management, and the members of upper management have at least an average understanding of your company's business continuity program.
But you may have limited face-time with members of upper management: perhaps you see them in a weekly staff meeting where you're expected to very briefly give an update. Unless you schedule time with them, which can be challenging, you don't have a lot of opportunities to:
- sell yourself: your skills, your initiative, your ideas;
- sell your business continuity program: not just update them on the latest development, but tout the progress that has been made in the program in the last year(s) or remind them of challenges that have been overcome; and
- sell your vision:
- what area(s) do you feel needs to be a focal point of the business continuity program this year?
- what ideas do you have about changing the status quo?
- what do you need management support to do this year?
The Alec Baldwin movie "Glengarry Glen Ross" utilizes a sales saying: ABC = Always Be Closing. It means everything should ideally be done with one goal in mind: taking you a step closer to making a sale or closing the deal.
Always Be Closing
Be prepared to use even a brief period of time (like an elevator ride) when you have the captive attention of someone in your organization crucial to your success or the success of one of you initiatives. Here's a sample elevator speech crafted to highlight a problem in the organization, what is already being done about the problem, and an idea that requires the buy-in of executive management:
Note that last sentence asking for a commitment to meet and discuss scheduling on a specific day. Without that sentence, you haven't asked for the "sale", you haven't necessarily made progress to closing the deal. You could go back to your office and hope he considers what you said . . . or you can Always Be Closing and ask for a commitment before he steps out of that elevator.
If those two paragraphs look long, consider this: with no practice (and a little bit of a slow southern drawl) I read it out loud in 47 seconds.
Experiment with developing several elevator speeches for different situations to accomplish different goals. Practice them so you are always ready.
As business continuity professionals, it's what we do: always be ready!
Never get caught not knowing what to say again.
Always Be Closing
Be prepared to use even a brief period of time (like an elevator ride) when you have the captive attention of someone in your organization crucial to your success or the success of one of you initiatives. Here's a sample elevator speech crafted to highlight a problem in the organization, what is already being done about the problem, and an idea that requires the buy-in of executive management:
"Did you know that at the last fire drill, it took 45 minutes to clear the building? I spoke with the fire chief and she said a building this size should be able to evacuate in half that time. One of the lunch-and-learns I've scheduled for Business Continuity Awareness Week in March, is for her to come in and stress exactly how quickly a fire can spread through a training video they use. I'm especially concerned that employees who require assistance aren't being evacuated fast enough.
"I'd like to increase the frequency of our fire drills until we improve the evacuation time, of course working around critical business periods. Combined with my awareness initiatives, I know we can do better on employee safety. Can I book some time with you next Monday to discuss the fire drill scheduling?"Look at the sentence in red: it ends on a positive note that shows confidence.
Note that last sentence asking for a commitment to meet and discuss scheduling on a specific day. Without that sentence, you haven't asked for the "sale", you haven't necessarily made progress to closing the deal. You could go back to your office and hope he considers what you said . . . or you can Always Be Closing and ask for a commitment before he steps out of that elevator.
If those two paragraphs look long, consider this: with no practice (and a little bit of a slow southern drawl) I read it out loud in 47 seconds.
Experiment with developing several elevator speeches for different situations to accomplish different goals. Practice them so you are always ready.
As business continuity professionals, it's what we do: always be ready!
Never get caught not knowing what to say again.
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Notification Wallet Card Template and Awareness Training
Business Continuity Contact Card (Wallet Card) Template
This PowerPoint presentation was shared on www.slideshare.net: Best Practices in Business Planning for Pandemic Influenza, by Jim Goble, CBCP, at National City Corporation. It's from 2006 but a lot of it is still relevant, including the Wallet Card template on slide 12.
If you've never created a Wallet Card for your organization, they're very useful. Team members may have a lot of that information on their phones, but it could be outdated. By developing and distributing a Wallet Card, they can refer to it and updates contact information in their phones. This is Crisis Communication, something a team would access during the Notification Phase of an event as well as the Assessment Phase.
Make sure you date your Wallet Cards, so employees can easily tell if they're looking at the most recent version. I recommend updating the card quarterly, or more often if important information changes.
If your organization isn't used to the idea of a Wallet Card, this can be something you introduce during Business Continuity Awareness Week, March 16 - 20, 2015.
http://bcaw.groupsite.com/main/summary
BCAW also has a lot of information you may want to add to your toolbox. You can also sign up for the group so that you'll get reminders about Business Continuity Awareness Week.
If you know that Business Continuity Awareness is an area your organization needs to work on, make this the year that you introduce Business Continuity Awareness Week!
This PowerPoint presentation was shared on www.slideshare.net: Best Practices in Business Planning for Pandemic Influenza, by Jim Goble, CBCP, at National City Corporation. It's from 2006 but a lot of it is still relevant, including the Wallet Card template on slide 12.
If you've never created a Wallet Card for your organization, they're very useful. Team members may have a lot of that information on their phones, but it could be outdated. By developing and distributing a Wallet Card, they can refer to it and updates contact information in their phones. This is Crisis Communication, something a team would access during the Notification Phase of an event as well as the Assessment Phase.
Make sure you date your Wallet Cards, so employees can easily tell if they're looking at the most recent version. I recommend updating the card quarterly, or more often if important information changes.
If your organization isn't used to the idea of a Wallet Card, this can be something you introduce during Business Continuity Awareness Week, March 16 - 20, 2015.
http://bcaw.groupsite.com/main/summary
BCAW also has a lot of information you may want to add to your toolbox. You can also sign up for the group so that you'll get reminders about Business Continuity Awareness Week.
If you know that Business Continuity Awareness is an area your organization needs to work on, make this the year that you introduce Business Continuity Awareness Week!
Saturday, January 17, 2015
Sunday, February 2, 2014
The need for disaster recovery isn't dead
TheGuardian.com ran an article in their Small Business Money Blog about the state of disaster recovery and business continuity planning in small and medium sized businesses:
Business continuity plans: a position for recovery
A few key take-aways:
Small and medium sized business that fail to create a disaster recovery or business continuity plan are more likely to close in the first two years of operating.
"In the Aviva survey, half of SME owners questioned revealed they had no BCP in place, and a further 16% said they didn't think they needed one. Only 36% of respondents were even aware of BCPs and what they were for, while, worryingly, only a quarter (28%) of business owners said they had a BCP in place. The remaining 6% didn't know if they had a BCP or not."
I think this article demonstrates that the need for disaster recovery isn't dead. Big businesses may tout that they have mirroring or use the Cloud and have business resiliency, but there is still a lot that needs to be done ot reach small and medium sized businesses.
I think there's been a trend of some people believing that as technology improves and more business functions are automated, the role of the business continuity professional is diminishing, but that just isn't true. IT continuity isn't business continuity.
Business continuity plans: a position for recovery
A few key take-aways:
Small and medium sized business that fail to create a disaster recovery or business continuity plan are more likely to close in the first two years of operating.
"In the Aviva survey, half of SME owners questioned revealed they had no BCP in place, and a further 16% said they didn't think they needed one. Only 36% of respondents were even aware of BCPs and what they were for, while, worryingly, only a quarter (28%) of business owners said they had a BCP in place. The remaining 6% didn't know if they had a BCP or not."
I think this article demonstrates that the need for disaster recovery isn't dead. Big businesses may tout that they have mirroring or use the Cloud and have business resiliency, but there is still a lot that needs to be done ot reach small and medium sized businesses.
I think there's been a trend of some people believing that as technology improves and more business functions are automated, the role of the business continuity professional is diminishing, but that just isn't true. IT continuity isn't business continuity.
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