Ken Simpson recently blogged how often we mistake the tool for the process in response to Trevor Levine’s (Riskczar) Risk management technology is not risk managment and I thought I would toss my own two pence worth in. The point that Trevor identifies is all too common across many disciplines. We do have this tendency to believe that technology will take away all of our pain, but it is often the case that we are not sure what the cause of that pain actually is. All too often people are not actually buying software, but the perceived knowledge and expertise that comes with it.
Firstly we should be fair in our assessment. Software is an integral part of delivering business continuity and risk management, unless of course you are delivering your process using stone tablets. Every consultant I know has a magic spreadsheet(s) that they use, so any declaration that software has no place in business continuity is a fallacious argument.
The issues facing successful continuity programmes are no different if you use a software solution or a document template approach. Often the initial goals for the programme are too lofty and the process too complex. Whether you automate this or not you are setting yourself up for failure. The usual outcome is the creation of disenchantment and a tick box culture; if you get that far. However, I’ve seen this behaviour in as many document based systems as I have software supported ones.
Software is not a panacea for all things and both Trevor and Ken are correct to focus on the process, as I myself have done over the past year’s posts. If you apply software to an ineffective process then all you will be doing is running your ineffective process at high speed. There is no doubt that software can automate the onerous parts of business continuity and resilience building, but the smarts should clearly be left to real people.
In the interests of transparency I had better point out that I work for a company that as part of its business makes software tools, some of which are focussed on resilience. For the avoidance of doubt this website and blog are my own and are not associated with or sponsored by the company. Look, they’re not even going to get a mention in this paragraph.
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