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 In his first year as a BC professional David Farr noticed various things that he believes everyone in the business continuity field should keep in mind.
People are always asking me, “So...what do you do?” “Not much,” is my usual reply.
“Very funny. What I mean is: What do you do for a job?” they ask. I tell them, “I do business continuity.” At this point, some people’s eyes glaze over and they change topics. The more curious individuals ask, “What on earth is business continuity?”
It’s this last question that gives me no end of headache because a proper answer requires more effort than I care to expend on a casual conversation. The fact of the matter is that a lot of people really don’t know what business continuity is. As a recent university graduate who’s only been working in the business continuity field for about a year, I’m not always comfortable explaining it.
That’s not to say that I haven’t tried. When I began doing business continuity, I would define it using lots of exciting examples and process descriptions. This often confused my audience, so I started quoting industry definitions:
“What’s business continuity? Well I’m glad you asked that question. Business continuity is ‘The ability of an organization to ensure continuity of service and support for its customers and to maintain its viability before, after, and during an event.’ [1]
This definition was difficult for me to remember and time-consuming to dictate, so eventually I just started saying, “I help companies to plan so that people know what to do if a disaster occurs.” I’ll admit that this oversimplifies the business continuity discipline, but it’s quick and easy to understand.
While I haven’t been in the business continuity industry long enough to fully understand, let alone explain, all of its many facets, I’m learning a lot. As a newcomer to the industry, I’ve made several important observations that everyone in the business continuity field should keep in mind.
The average person has no clue what business continuity is
While business continuity is an increasingly familiar term in many business sectors, the questions I get from friends and family suggest that the majority of consumers have never heard of it.
Luckily, numerous industry vendors and voluntary organizations launch initiatives to generate awareness on a frequent basis.
Business continuity has a lot of acronyms
When I began doing business continuity, I was inundated with such terms as RTO, RPO, MTO, BCM, BCP, DRP, BRP, and other TLAs [2]. The Disaster Recovery Journal’s ‘Business Continuity Glossary’ can really help you dig your way out of the avalanche of terms, but don’t expect the glossary to solve all of your terminology problems. Some organizations continue to use their own lexicon, and new terms are being coined every day.
Formal business continuity education is scarce
While business continuity has been around in one form or another for over thirty years, the industry has only adopted a somewhat standardized methodology in the last decade or so. I say “somewhat standardized” because each vendor has its own ‘brand’ of the generally accepted methodology. For example, most business continuity programs have three high-level phases: 1) Analysis, 2) Implementation, and 3) Testing and Maintenance – but each vendor sub-divides the phases into their own proprietary sub-phases. Combine this with the fact that the general methodology is evolving over time, and you can see why only a handful of post-secondary institutions offer formal business continuity education programs in North America.
Business Continuity isn’t rocket science, but it can be complicated
Someone once told me, “Business continuity isn’t rocket science.” This was good news because I’d forgotten all of the physics I took in high school. While the high-level concepts of business continuity are pretty easy to grasp, the details can be complicated. The scope of business continuity is quite broad. It considers all of the people, processes, and technology within an organization as well as the governments, suppliers, and other external entities that interact with the organization. The myriad dependencies that exist between these many entities are what make business continuity complicated to implement in practice.
Organizations need strong business continuity champions
A strong champion can really help an organization to implement business continuity; a weak one can hinder the implementation effort. The ideal champion does not need to be well-trained in implementing business continuity, but he or she must understand why it is important and provide the time, resources, and influence to support the implementation effort. It helps if the champion is well-known and respected throughout the organization because others will see how important he or she considers business continuity to be and take it to heart themselves.
These are just some of the observations I’ve made during my brief time in the business continuity field. I’m sure there are many more. My hope is that other industry newcomers will read this article and know that they aren’t the only ones getting bombarded with strange new terms and methodologies.
Now can anyone define business continuity in five words or less?!
David Farr is a business continuity management specialist at Research In Motion and can be contacted at dfarr@rim.com
This article is one of a series being published in relation to the Americas & Australasia Business Continuity Awareness Week 2006.
1 Source: “Business Continuity Glossary”, Disaster Recovery Journal
2 Three Letter Acronyms (TLAs)
•Date: 9th May 2006 • Region: Various • Type: Article •Topic: BC general
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