… the story so far

I thought I would provide a summary of my thinking and writing so far, both to serve as a guide for new visitors, and to set up the next step of developing my own thinking on the subject.

Probably the best point to start with is the series of literature reviews on Resilience (see this archive Resilience Research). The significant posts relate to;

• Resilient Organisations (University of Canterbury, NZ)
  • asserts that resilience is not something you do, but something you are
  • resilience needs to recognize that we operate in a complex, dynamic and interconnected environment
  • provides a multi-dimensional model and indicators
• High Reliability Management
  • Introduces a concept called “mindfulness” – the key to a High Reliability Organisation (HRO)
  • 5 Principles of a HRO – split into “Anticipation” and “Containment” modes
  • Highlights that how we conduct day-to-day business is a key to how we operate in adverse situations.
• Centre for Resilience (Ohio State University)
  • Presents a model of resilience mapped against the dimensions of Strategic/Tactical and Functional/Structural
  • The Strategic purpose is to build robustness
  • The Tactical layer needs to demonstrate functional agility
  • Introduce the concepts of the Adaptive Organisation (Sense,Respond)
• 4R Framework (MCEER, State University of New York)
  • Defines resilience by three outcomes – reduced probability and consequence of failure, reduced time to restore.
  • 4 Characteristics of resilience – Robustness, Redundancy, Resourcefulness and Rapidity
  • Rapidity is a function of the other three.
• NZ Resilience Trust
  • the opposite of being resilient is being vulnerable
  • focussed on communities and building these capabilities in the community
  • highlights that this aspect needs to be built bottom up.

There has been a series of posts on Contemporary BC Practice – which essentially set up the concept that the tired and dated practices of DR Planning are still practiced by many, just being branded as BC Management. Focus on the artefact rather than the management and not looking at contemporary thinking in related areas such as knowledge management would be part of this “Heritage” practice of BC.

Resilience may turn out be nothing more than BCM done properly. This post about new directions in BC generated more discussion than most.

Finally I started to clarify and share my own position on the subject in this category of posts. The focus is on building capability rather than meeting compliance requirements – and the need to address the domains of  People, Process and Technology.

That is my story so far – it does not cover every single post, hopefully if you are interested you will browse the rest. Tomorrow I will build on my initial foundation thinking post (at long last).

My challenge to the reader today. Write a comment – Pose the single, most important question/issue in your mind on the subject of BC/Resilience.

• What is your burning issue or question?
• What area of thinking and action will make a significant improvement in your program in 2010?