Thursday 24 January 2013

Disaster Planning Checklist


Just like a simple checklist for car or home maintenance, your business needs emergency management maintenance as well. For your convenience here’s a Business Service Checklist that I developed for my use.  It fits on a single page all the business maintenance tasks that need regular attention, but which are forgotten easily.  I hope you find it useful!  Please add your own recommendations in the comments section.

Every 3 months:
  • Check first aid kit, replenish supplies as necessary.
  • Check employee roster to make sure numbers are correct.
  • Drill generator or back up power capabilities.
 
Every 6 months:
  • Test your crisis communication plan.
  • Exercise your plans.
  • Hold mock evacuation of your facility. Invite local fire department to take part and give recommendations.
 
Every year:
  • Have fire extinguishers inspected by licensed professional.
  • Have AED (automated external defibrillator) inspected and, if necessary, recharged.
  • Replace batteries in supply kits, emergency exit lighting, etc.
  • Review your risks.  What’s changed?
  • Update your response, recovery and resumption plans.
  • Review insurance coverage.
  • Have local fire & police departments do a walk through of your facility.  Each brings a unique and new perspective to safety, vulnerabilities and security improvements.  This also keeps you in touch with the people who would be responding to emergencies at your facilities.  During an emergency is NOT the best time to get introduced!
  • Employee safety training & awareness – choose a specific day every year to employee safety and awareness. September is National Preparedness Month and is ideal.  There are  various activities to take part in across the  nation.  Many service providers host free seminars and offer preparedness kits.  Hold your own personal and professional prep seminars. Make it fun! Hold safety competitions, get employees involved. Recognize employees or departments with high safety track records.   Distribute resources like home safety kit fact sheets. Highlight office safety initiatives like reporting spills, extinguisher training or expert audits.


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Tuesday 22 January 2013

What is Business Continuity Management?

In short, I believe that the core of continuity management is responsible risk taking.  Central to every business is leverage: taking a risk to create value. Businesses inherently take risks and if you’re not taking risks than you won’t be in business for long.  In order to take risks and stay in business, you must be good at managing or mitigating those risks and dealing with responding to their consequences.

For more details visit http://www.dcsplanning.com/what-is-business-continuity-management  and http://www.diyturnkeycontinuity.com

Saturday 19 January 2013

Continuity at the North Pole

Consider a complex manufacturing and logistics organisation, based at the North Pole, traditionally very busy around the 25th December. As you might imagine, planning for this event takes all year – no sooner has Santa Claus sat down on Boxing Day then he’’s called to deal with all sorts of unplanned events that require attention.

This year, it started early. Santa was putting the sleigh in the garage when he was accosted by Mrs Claus.
““What are these reports on the radio about you kissing somebody’’s Mommy?”” she demanded.
““W, w, what? Who?”” Santa stammered.

Santa was able to explain that there must have been a case of mistaken identity. Santa’’s image had taken a battering at the hands of an imposter. He was straight onto his Incident Management Team and, following a quick injunction and a public apology, his reputation was restored. He couldn’’t afford for his customers to think he was in anyway naughty.

February brought ice storms to the North Pole.

““Sir, it’’s too cold for the employees to work,”” his Elf and Safety Manager told him, “”I have instructed the elves to down tools.””

Santa sighed and reached for the Yellow Pages, “”Hello, heat engineers? It’s just possible you could save my elves…”.”

Despite the interruption, with a bit of overtime, the Elves were soon back on schedule.

Things carried on uninterrupted until spring saw flocks of birds returning from their winter habitats. Concern rose amongst Santa’’s employees that the wild birds may bring the H5N1 avian flu virus with them, giving rise to concerns about an epidemic. Santa consulted the WHO website for the latest advice.

““There’’s currently little risk for us, the birds are returning from countries where there has been no recorded H5N1 outbreaks, but to be sure, I’’ll employ a couple of special wardens specifically to keep an eye on the well-being of the birds”” he told his elves, hoping that he wouldn’’t have to employ more wardens when the wild reindeer herds returned. He’’d read that the Blue Tongue virus was spreading north and already had problems with one of his sleigh crew having a red nose….

The summer holidays always presented Santa with problems, bored children with too much time on their hands were always on the lookout to cause mischief. This year Santa’’s IT partners informed him one morning that his “Naughty or Nice” database had been hacked! The status of all the children had been changed and there was no way they could sort it out.

Fortunately Santa is pretty tech-savvy. He didn’’t panic and instructed his IT department to delete the data and restore from the back up. As extra insurance, he asked for a full virus check to be undertaken, arranged for the firewall firmware to be updated and instructed all the elves to change their passwords.

There were no further problems to distract Santa. Come the 24th, the Elves loaded up the sleigh and the reindeer team was harnessed. Santa clambered up into the driving seat, picked up the reins with one hand and turned the sleigh’s ignition with the other. There was a short croak and then nothing. He turned the key again, with the same result. Santa realised that when he had been managing his reputation issues last year, he’’d forgotten to turn the sleigh headlights off. The battery had gone flat.

Fortunately, on Mrs Claus’ insistence, the date was the 24th of November and Santa and Elves were running an exercise. Sure, Santa hated having to squeeze into his suit before his annual diet had worked off all the previous year’s mince pies, the Elves got cranky at having to load and unload the sleigh and the reindeer team disliked being taken from their warm stables, but Mrs Claus had seen the benefits of exercising ahead of “the “big off””. The battery was rigged up to the charger and, come the big day, all the good children received the right presents thanks to Santa’’s business continuity arrangements….

Friday 11 January 2013

10 Simple Planning Actions to Increase Your Consistency of Exceeding Customer Expectations

Many executives ask themselves: “I know the basics about critical processes and mission-critical systems but what can I do to really make a difference in our ability to consistently exceed our customer’s expectations?” 

 One way is to focus on increasing your business value and to sustain that value regardless of expected or unexpected circumstances. Below are 10 planning actions that you can take to support your mission critical value proposition.

10. Don’t be satisfied with a computer backup plan.  When your clients ask what’s the #1 reason they should use your company, do you say it’s your technology?  Probably not.  Why are you relying on technology to save you in a disaster?

9. Ask questions.  What are your employees doing in their personal lives for emergency readiness?  What are their concerns?  How can you help them?

8. Talk about operational risk and continuity management in business strategy meetings.  Talking is the first step to integrating it into the corporate culture.

7. Don’t count on vendors to pick up your slack in an emergency.  If it’s not written into your contract don’t put it in your plan.  Even then, always have a backup plan.

6. Know when to say there’s a problem.  Chances are you’re not going to be the one to first notice something is wrong.  If you are ignoring business deficiencies, others are too.

5. Know your emergency response plan.  Every natural hazard has a professional group that monitors it and knows how to respond.  The response plans are usually free online.  Get a good plan for the basic natural disasters in your area.  Keep it simple and your bases covered.

4. Don’t focus on the fear.  It’s easy to look at the unlimited disaster scenarios and get overwhelmed.  Instead look at what’s really important – a strong business plan.

3. Make a list of what is really important to your business.  Keep it short – not more than ten points (tops!).  Share it with everyone – your boss, your employees, your clients, your partners.

2. Build relationships with three key responders.  This could be your local police department or a critical vendor.  The point is being on a first name basis with the person who has the answers you’re going to need during your emergency.

1. Create a solid employee communications plan and test it quarterly or more often.  People are your greatest asset; know how to connect with them.  Set standards and make them clear.
Still unsure or need help developing a road map to make your path simple?  We’re here for you.  Call now for a free consultation.    888-297-PLAN

For more details visit--http://www.dcsplanning.com
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