It is important to differentiate between a program and project at this point. A “program” is when your business continuity plans are established and you have moved into a maintenance role. You are still testing your plans while in maintenance to determine where your plans can be improved and strengthened. A “project,” however, is when you are implementing business continuity within your organization for the first time. The overall goal is to achieve business continuity program status. As your program evolves you may have small projects within your program. For the purposes of this article I will mainly focus on the project aspects, but keep in mind that these elements can be applied to a program as well. The following is a high-level chart outlining some typical pitfalls and possible solutions. The remainder of this article outlines further details for each area listed below.
Independent Decision Making
A decision has to be made and no one is stepping up to make it. As the project manager it is so easy to get caught into making all the project decisions. As the business continuity expert it is your role to provide the details, identify the potential risks and provide all potential solutions. Your senior executive team may also rely upon you to make decisions. So how do you put yourself in a position to advise and provide information instead of making all of the decisions?
At the beginning of your project you need to identify your stakeholders and key participants. The project stakeholders are typically your senior executive team. After you have identified the stakeholders it is important to utilize this team in reviewing and approving the project charter and any changes. Your stakeholders are the individuals who will assist you in clearing any roadblocks and ensuring the project has the opportunity to succeed.
The project participants are the key individuals within the business areas, typically managers or team leaders who will assist you in identifying what is essential to the survival of the business. Most importantly they will work, with your guidance, toward developing the business continuity plan for their specific business area. The involvement of the participants throughout the planning phase will develop the required buy-in for each business area to ensure the longevity of your business continuity program.
When a major decision regarding an aspect of your project is required, ensure that the stakeholders are involved in the decision making process. With this said, you cannot hand all ownership over to the stakeholder. The stakeholders will expect you to make the day-to-day project management decisions. Utilizing your business continuity expertise, you will be responsible for organizing the project and ensuring the appropriate areas are covered, under the business continuity methodology that your business has adopted.
Bias Opinions
Everyone knows what bias opinions are and how it can affect a project or the general work environment of any organization. Each business area representative will have definite opinions of what is important for their business and what the organization should implement for recovery purposes to meet their needs. It is human nature to think and feel that your job or role within the organization is critical. It is your job as the business continuity planner to ensure the project objectives and goals are noticeably thought out and documented. You should be communicating this to all participants of the project. This seems like such an obvious task – but it will save you hours of explaining and eliminate the risk of you getting pulled in many different directions by the organization. This dilemma in itself can lead to potential pitfalls.
Scope Creep
If you have not identified your project goals and objectives in advance, there is the potential to have your project scope creep out of control. At the initial meeting with each business area you should outline the project goals and objectives within the project charter as mentioned above. Once you start working with each area, whether IT or business end users, it begins to open up doors and fuel the imagination to the potential risks and impacts that the organization could be exposed to.
Therefore, an important piece of advice is to have the project charter readily available for yourself and your participants to avoid complications. This does not mean that you will not listen to the ideas or concerns of a particular business area. As the project leader you may want to capture all critical business continuity ideas of the participants, but continue to remind them of the scope of the particular project at hand. Depending on the solutions or ideas presented, it may be of value to present these ideas to the stakeholders for evaluation. If the stakeholders approve the ideas (therefore increasing the scope), then you are already well ahead in the information gathering process. Any time there is a change to the project scope you should adjust the project charter to reflect the changes and obtain sign off from the stakeholders before moving forward in the project.
Do It Yourself
Before you initiate your project you have to remind yourself that you have been chosen for this role because of your skill set and knowledge. With this said it is also easy to take on too much and then miss project deadlines. Since business continuity is usually something over and above the normal job functions of the participants, you may find it difficult to get buy in and commitment to complete the project within the required timelines. The worst mistake you could make is to start working on tasks yourself or completing tasks for business users. It is never recommended that you write the entire business continuity plan(s) yourself without the commitment from the business and senior management.
Closed Door Syndrome
As a business continuity planner you may find that others within your organization may not understand the project. Therefore the potential is there to work in isolation and not involve other members in the organization. This is not a recommended solution for any business continuity planner when implementing the business continuity program. Even if you have been with the organization for multiple years, have worked in many different area of the organization, and feel you know the needs of the organization, what is critical or not and what should be planned for. If you do not involve the individuals affected by the plan there will be no ownership of the plans. As well, others within your organization may not understand the concepts or the need to develop a business continuity plan.
How can you avoid this? Through implementation of a communication and overall awareness program, you can increase the understanding within your organization. This can be done by organizing lunch-and-learns, breakfast meetings, getting involved in regular communications to the organization, or developing your own business continuity communication. The best technique for advertising your business continuity program is to get out, walk around, and talk to the business areas. You need to make sure everyone is involved in the program and knows what is happening.
It is important to note here that the development of a business continuity plan requires specialized knowledge and skill set but the detailed information should involve the individuals actually doing the job.
So … you have energized the business, completed your research for the project charter, identified your stakeholders, and obtained sign off on your project charter. You are now ready to involve the key players and assess your businesses’ needs in the event of a disaster. With this done you are well on your way to implementing an executable business continuity plan to protect your business.
Kim Sachau, CBCP, is a business continuity consultant for Agility Recovery Solutions. Sachau has more than seven years in the information technology, business continuity and Six Sigma project management fields. She has worked as a continuity planner with companies in many industries including financial, legal, information technology, and education. Sachau is a Six Sigma Quality Black Belt, holding certification in quality and process improvement methodologies and is a graduate of the DRI International certification program. She is qualified in business impact analysis, IT plans, business unit plans, crisis management, crisis communications, salvage exercise, and emergency response planning, among other disciplines.
