A Little Mistake that Can Cost Your Business Big Time - and an easy way around it.
I don't want to be a pessimist, but in today's times, businesses can become vulnerable in any number of ways. For instance, few companies can risk the ravages of natural disasters or breaches in computer security or disruptive events like power outages. I know my NovaMind business is very reliant on power, network availability etc. Also the costs of human error, such as is endemic in the mishandling of toxic substances, and even smaller scale business mishaps can be too risky for a company to bear.
So, the emergence of what many call business continuity planning, emergency planning, and disaster recovery planning is really not untimely or trivial. In fact, there is a growing awareness that businesses vitally need to develop plans that will minimize the impact of any of these incidents should they occur.
The mistake that many businesses make is that they don't have a proper plan in place to deal with these risks.
So, the emergence of what many call business continuity planning, emergency planning, and disaster recovery planning is really not untimely or trivial. In fact, there is a growing awareness that businesses vitally need to develop plans that will minimize the impact of any of these incidents should they occur.
The mistake that many businesses make is that they don't have a proper plan in place to deal with these risks.
Making the Complex Simple
Many say that this is a complex undertaking, involving a serious examination of risks and the impact of these risks given different scenarios. It is also complex in that creating a comprehensive plan involves many, many steps, each of which must be maintained, tested and audited to ensure it remains appropriate to the needs of each particular organization.
Well, just the enormity of the subject is enough to cause many of those charged with the task to want to back away. Still, when you realize that, like all projects, this one can be managed meaningfully if planners simply have a really good tool to make the complex simpler. With a good tool, planners actually have a very good chance of overseeing the project successfully, and may even look forward to meeting these planning challenges head on.
The secret then is to plan, and to plan using tools that can show both an overview position as well as the details in a way many people can absorb quickly. Mind maps make particularly good sense given these sorts of needs. Let's look at why.
Well, just the enormity of the subject is enough to cause many of those charged with the task to want to back away. Still, when you realize that, like all projects, this one can be managed meaningfully if planners simply have a really good tool to make the complex simpler. With a good tool, planners actually have a very good chance of overseeing the project successfully, and may even look forward to meeting these planning challenges head on.
The secret then is to plan, and to plan using tools that can show both an overview position as well as the details in a way many people can absorb quickly. Mind maps make particularly good sense given these sorts of needs. Let's look at why.
Mind Maps As a General Business Planning Tool
In the typical business planning situation, businesses will often need to define the business. This may sound rather silly, but is important in the process of identifying what the critical aspects of the business are, so they can be kept running in all circumstances, or be brought online again quickly in the event of a disaster.
This might mean defining the company values, target market, level of service, etc. For example, here is a plan for a motor vehicle workshop:
This might mean defining the company values, target market, level of service, etc. For example, here is a plan for a motor vehicle workshop:
This level of business planning is essential to create the type of business you want to build anyway, but has the additional benefit of identifying what is most important to protect in your business continuity planning.
In effect, what we are seeing are the main driving factors behind the business definition, then specific decisions about a company's direction and commitments, then details about what is important in making sure that a commitment or service level was reached.
Anyone looking at such a visual summary will be able to determine immediately what it is that makes the company unique, and what the most important things are to keep running in the event of a disaster.
For the overall company perspective, you can identify the threats / risks, impact and mitigation strategies, as well as responses should that risk come to pass.
After this, you can identify the main activities and assets that need to be protected and operational, and for each one, create a Mind Map of the threats / risks, mitigation strategies and responses.
In effect, what we are seeing are the main driving factors behind the business definition, then specific decisions about a company's direction and commitments, then details about what is important in making sure that a commitment or service level was reached.
Anyone looking at such a visual summary will be able to determine immediately what it is that makes the company unique, and what the most important things are to keep running in the event of a disaster.
For the overall company perspective, you can identify the threats / risks, impact and mitigation strategies, as well as responses should that risk come to pass.
After this, you can identify the main activities and assets that need to be protected and operational, and for each one, create a Mind Map of the threats / risks, mitigation strategies and responses.
Threats and Risks
The following is a list of many of the risks and threats and risks that you would commonly consider:
- Natural disasters, such as earthquakes, hurricanes, floods
- Fire
- Cyber attack
- Utility outage, such as power, internet connectivity, phone etc.
- Disease
- Terrorism
- Other business specific factors, such as reliance on third party services, government legislation, or business partnerships
For each of these, or for other threats specific to your business, you would identify what is critical and non-critical, and what the risk factor is assessed to be.
You then create both a risk mitigation plan and a response plan for the risk.
You then create both a risk mitigation plan and a response plan for the risk.
Emergency Planning Mind Map
Risk Mitigation Plan
There are several possible approaches for dealing with risk.
You can try to avoid it, but often that means missing out on opportunities you could benefit from.
You can work on reducing the risk that the threat would impact your business by things such as contingency strategies, backup plans, alternate providers, etc. There are two main aspects of this - reducing the risk of the issue occurring, and reducing the impact if it does. For example, if flooding was a risk, you might locate your premises on high ground (reducing risk), or if a particular payment processing system was a critical factor, you may have duplicate payment processing systems in place with different providers (reducing impact).
And you can transfer the risk to other people through insurance, spreading the risk over a whole business or multiple businesses, or contracting disaster recovery companies to be prepared in the case of an emergency.
You can try to avoid it, but often that means missing out on opportunities you could benefit from.
You can work on reducing the risk that the threat would impact your business by things such as contingency strategies, backup plans, alternate providers, etc. There are two main aspects of this - reducing the risk of the issue occurring, and reducing the impact if it does. For example, if flooding was a risk, you might locate your premises on high ground (reducing risk), or if a particular payment processing system was a critical factor, you may have duplicate payment processing systems in place with different providers (reducing impact).
And you can transfer the risk to other people through insurance, spreading the risk over a whole business or multiple businesses, or contracting disaster recovery companies to be prepared in the case of an emergency.
Response Plan
Your response plan or recovery plan must include all aspects of the recovery processes such as:
- The command structure for crisis management, along with full contact details and capability profiles
- Roles and responsibilities during crisis recovery, along with full contact details and capability profiles
- Details of all equipment and services available to be utilized during recovery
- Details of all the steps in the recovery process, both to get an initial basic operation up and running, and for full restoration of business
- Plans for training the staff who would be involved in the process
- Plans for testing the systems that are involved in the recovery
- Plans for maintaining and updating the recovery system
Mind Maps As a Business Planning Tool for Disaster Planning, Emergency Planning or Business Contingency Planning
In the scenario typical of the disaster recovery planner, the visual mind map created is not so significantly different from that created for the general business planner. Examining the mind map below, you can see that the center of the mind map names the disaster planning effort, e.g. what to do if natural disaster "x" occurs. It may then proceed to identify the areas that might be affected by that disaster type, followed by the potential impacts (magnitude), and measures and countermeasures to address each type of inherent organizational response to an attack and so forth.
Emergency Planning for Natural Disasters
A mind map could also be linked to each of the categories that further illustrates that category. For example, to create a dependency analysis, you might want to create a series of questions with different options with which to respond, depending on the scenario.
You can link one mind map to another, illustrating in increasingly detail what needs to consider to have a successful disaster plan in place. In the same way, attaching an audit questionnaire, a checklist, key staffing resources to take charge during each contingency, and procedures that would help facilitate right action during this time can all have their separate maps linked from the core overview map.
When supporting documentation is all in one place as well as concisely presented as with a mind map, it is now possible to consume new information quickly and in a way that doesn't confuse or overwhelm.
As with the general business planning document mentioned above, aside from linking to ever increasing mind maps of specificity, mind maps make possible two other key contributions:
You can link one mind map to another, illustrating in increasingly detail what needs to consider to have a successful disaster plan in place. In the same way, attaching an audit questionnaire, a checklist, key staffing resources to take charge during each contingency, and procedures that would help facilitate right action during this time can all have their separate maps linked from the core overview map.
When supporting documentation is all in one place as well as concisely presented as with a mind map, it is now possible to consume new information quickly and in a way that doesn't confuse or overwhelm.
As with the general business planning document mentioned above, aside from linking to ever increasing mind maps of specificity, mind maps make possible two other key contributions:
- They help you aggregate all relevant documentation, e.g a specific word document or pdf to each major branch to improve access to highly relevant information,
- They can be printed out to be a highly readable, at a glance, (poster sized, if preferred) reminder of what to do.
Finally, disasters and special contingencies often occur in a climate that demands fast response. If the plan itself is not one that organizational staff are likely to be very familiar with, all the more reason while an overview that a mind map provides of what to do and the various issues to be considered while doing it will be a small but perhaps crucial piece to successful emergency preparation.
And there you have it - a hopefully very convincing argument for why mind maps are essential elements for your business disaster recovery planning efforts!
And there you have it - a hopefully very convincing argument for why mind maps are essential elements for your business disaster recovery planning efforts!
P.S. Back up your plan!
Just one final note - and this may seem obvious, but there have been a number of companies caught out by this in the past...
Make sure that your business continuity plan can not be lost in a disaster! Of course, this also goes for all supporting data, documents, equipment, services, etc that are required for the recovery operation.
Make sure that your business continuity plan can not be lost in a disaster! Of course, this also goes for all supporting data, documents, equipment, services, etc that are required for the recovery operation.
Some useful Mind Mapping and continuity planning links
- Business uses of Mind Mapping
- How to use Mind Mapping in your business - lots of examples and a link to a very interesting case study.
- Business Guide to Mind Mapping book
- A book by Mind Mapping expert Gideon King, telling you all about how to use Mind Mapping in your business.
- How to make Mind Maps
- An introduction to the basics of Mind Mapping, how and why they work, and how to create them.
- Business Continuity Planning from Wikipedia
- Information on business continuity planning from Wikipedia.
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