Since I took a break from the blog there have been some interesting posts from other bloggers, that I have only recently had time to catch up on. One which caught my eye was from the the Business Continuity Guru Blog by John Ames entitled BCP Documentation – Keep It Simple & Uniform. In this post John asserts that software is causing much frustration amongst his small and medium sized clients and that the solution to this is a much simpler approach using standard templates. I can sympathise with his client’s frustration, but doubt that software is the issue, although there is clearly some truly badly designed software out there.
So first let me take issue with one half of John’s solution, although I will add a caveat at the end of this paragraph. I certainly agree with a simpler approach to the planning process and have indeed promoted this on the ABC blog in previous posts. I would however take issue with the idea of uniform plans. It is not that I believe that each part of a business should have different types of plan, but rather some areas require more detail than other areas. I don’t believe that my own perspective on this and John’s are that far off, but I do worry that uniformity merely leads to that old tickbox culture that we are all busy fighting. Aren’t we? Promoting the idea that “fill in this set of documents and your done” benefits no one, except of course those who promote such ideas. The caveat on this is of course that John seems to deal in the small and medium sized organisations who need a much lighter touch than larger organisations. In these types of organisation John’s cookie cutter approach will almost certainly develop a more beneficial output, although it may not be optimum.
On the software issue, as you may already know, I disagree that software is the root of all evil. As I have said before, if software is not providing a material benefit then it is likely the wrong software. With a single stroke many practitioners paint business continuity as not benefiting from software optimisation, and I find this a little hard to believe. The suggestion that we don’t need software is often followed by an assertion that all you need is … Word and Excel … or as I like to call it … software. Now that you are using Word and Excel, can you imagine one small feature that could be added to your Word and Excel system that would make your clients life easier, simpler and more cost effective. Great, now imagine another, and another … and possibly another.
I have seen the disasterous concequences of the application of a Word, Excel based solution. Indeed, I have a number of clients who have previously spent vast quantities of money implementing such a solution only to find that they have made no material difference to the resilience of their organisation. I am not suggesting that software is a panacea (software never is), but suspect that in terms of this argument, it may simply be a useful diversion from other issues. Rather than blaming the software tools (or Word templates) it may be time to understand that some Business Continuity practices are the problem.
On a side note, here is my favourite section of John’s post:
Ask yourself the following questions. What does the content of your documentation reveal? How is the document organized? Can you (or someone other than the planner) follow the defined path for response, resumption and recovery? Just how effective would the documentation be if you actually had to utilize it?
I couldn’t agree more John, if only more people asked these questions, how much more resilient the world would be.
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