Archive for Frameworks
… WCDM is over
Posted by: | CommentsActually it has been over for a couple of days, but I have just gotten around to writing about it.
This was by first visit to the World Conference on Disaster Management. It is probably the best event in this field that I have been to – I would certainly want to go again next year, finances permitting.
The blend of Emergency Management, Business Continuity, Disaster Recovery and general thought leadership in the field is something I have not seen at another conference. These guys have been going for 20 years for a reason, and that is quality.
Day 3 had no concurrent sessions, only plenary sessions. Two sessions on Crisis Management, one on the threat of Terrorism and a Panel Discussion on emerging trends. This format is by nature less interactive, but the panel session certainly tried to achieve some degree of dialogue with the audience.
I came away with a renewed conviction that this concept of resilience needs to be pursued. It has also re-enforced by own ideas and direction of thinking on this subject.
The idea of a new discipline of Resilience or Resiliency Management is misguided. To a large extent it is the various frameworks, standards, certifications and systems of compliance associated to “X” Management that create the need for the new thinking in the first place
Building and maintaining resilience in our organisations will require the application of both Art and Science – in the appropriate balance. You cannot produce a standard or a prescriptive approach to this Art.
Being resilient is also only likely to have meaning in context – and that context may be different for each organisation. To this end building and maintaining resilience is not a repeatable process. It is perhaps a wicked problem, and not in the scope of the discipline of management to solve.
WCDM is coming to Sydney on 11&12 October 2010.
Hope to see you there, or perhaps next year in Toronto.
Are you interested in the concept of resilience if it not a simple and easy to implement package?
Are modern organisation only interested in standardisation and ‘KISS”?
References
World Conference on Disaster Management, Australia
My BCI Presentation that first talks about the Art/Science balance
… benchmarking resilience
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With all the air traffic disruption in Europe at the moment, perhaps it is timely to have a new tool we can use to benchmark our levels of resilience.
The Resilient Organisations Research Program at the University of Canterbury have just released a report on the use of their Benchmarking tool in the Auckland Region of New Zealand. The report is free to download from their website.
Perhaps the first thing that struck me about this research was that this group continue to refine their thinking on the subject of resilience and the attempt to measure or predict this attribute has led to a significant shift in the dimensions and indicators they use to define resilience.
- An earlier publication (2007, based on the thesis work of Sonia McManus) identified 3 Dimensions and within each Dimension there are 5 indicators of organisational resilience.
- The three dimensions were Situation Awareness, Management of Keystone Vulnerabilities and Adaptive Capacity
- Following a workshop in January 2008 another Dimension – Resilience Ethos – was added. Plus another 8 indicators
- The current benchmarking report (which will be the thesis work of Amy Stephenson) has field tested the model and adapted it to define resilience in terms of 2 Dimensions and 13 Indicators.
- These elements are;
- Adaptive Capacity (Dimension)
- Lack of silo mentality
- Capability & Capacity of Internal Resources
- Staff Engagement & Involvement
- Information & Knowledge
- Leadership, Management & Governance Structures
- Innovation & Creativity
- Devolved & Responsive Decision Making
- Intern & External Situation Monitoring & Reporting
- Planning (Dimension)
- Planning Strategies
- Participation in Exercises
- Proactive Posture
- Capability & Capacity of External Resources
- Recovery Priorities
- Adaptive Capacity (Dimension)
I like this new split, the dimensions simply align with developing the planning ‘science’ and the adaptive ‘art’ of resilience. There is greater details about each indicator in the paper.
It is interesting that the Auckland benchmark found that the majority of responders are reliant on their Adaptive Capacity. That is to say that they ranked higher on that dimension than the planning dimension. This may reflect a lack of investment in planning approaches rather than the innate adaptability of New Zealand managers.
The benchmark research was undertaken in 2009, so it represents very current data. The report has a breakdown by sector and highlights some areas for improvement. The most resilient sector was “Health and Community” (which being government dominated was also the only sector that scored higher on planning than adaptive capacity). The least resilient sector was “Wholesale Trade” who tended to rate very low on planning and have a significant exposure to supply chain disruptions.
I would recommend reading the report for those interested – 48 pages including 10 pages of graphs. I look forward to seeing the presentation on this subject at the World Conference on Disaster Management in Toronto.
Having to measure on only 2 dimensions makes things easier. Will you be trying to benchmark your resilience?
- If not, why not?
- If yes, then how will you be doing it?
