Contemplating ...

I started this blog in late 2009 when I set out to explore the concept of resilience. Writing forced me to read widely to develop my understanding and hopefully promote informed discussion on the subject. What follows is my ‘Resilience 101′ – a summary of my purpose and basic position and the “My thinking on Resilience” posts (at right) elaborate on this position if you are interested.

I first came into the Business Continuity discipline in the 1980′s when it was an IT activity called Disaster Recovery. In those 30+ years i have seen many name changes and several body of knowledge changes. Unfortunately too many people are still doing the same work we did back then – just with a different name.

Resilience is not the new name for BCM – although simple rebadging is once again rife.

Resilience is a higher-order discipline/practice within an organisation. It must address wider and more strategic issues than BCM does – or probably will ever do.

Resilience is not going to be achieved via process and standardisation. Both of these attributes play their role within the writes a operational areas that contribute to overall resilience – which includes BCM.

The great risk to the concept of resilience is the desire to make it a commodity, generally motivated by the industry in order to sell you a solution – the product offerings are not just technology and systems but include publications, standards and certifications.

The stated scope and focus of the discipline has allegedly followed this rough progression;

• DRP
• BCP
• BCM
• Resilience

At each new stage we should have seen a wider focus the focus of the discipline, and expanded the role, skills and organisational standing of practitioners.

• Out of data centre and IT
• Into Business processes
• Wider enterprise view and integrated with Emergency Management and Crisis Management
• Outside the enterprise and into the value chain
• Strategic, transformational and non-physical events

Unfortunately we have not seen this, and my recent presenting and writing around engaging Executives could have been applicable at most stages of the past 30 years. Too often each step in the progression was a repudiation of the narrow, process focus of the previous stage. Each step in the evolution demanded new skills and new thinking, not rebranding of the old order.

Let’s not do that again!

This blog is to encourage you to think beyond …