Using Tools You Didn’t Know You Had
by Stacy Gardner

As most business continuity managers know, getting the resources necessary to implement and maintain a business continuity program can be difficult, if not impossible. Executive management usually requires a definitive return-on-investment or positive cost-benefit analysis before approving a budget; however, the benefits of an effective business continuity program are often more qualitative than quantitative. Another issue is business continuity management software: many business continuity software programs can be extremely expensive and can require significant additional, unanticipated resources to implement and maintain, including personnel resources and time. While no official studies have been conducted, our experience shows that many companies either significantly underutilize their business continuity software or fully abandon it. Instead of spending time and resources on difficult-to-use software, business continuity managers can learn to do more with less and utilize already-in-place software programs and technologies to make their business continuity programs more effective and efficient.

Especially in large organizations, many departments acquire software programs for their own needs without exploring how it could benefit other areas of the organization as well. Before purchasing pricy, time-intensive software applications, Business continuity managers should investigate what programs already exist within their organization. Key departments to look at include Human Resources (for training and awareness programs), Information Technology (for project management and workflow applications), and Sales/Marketing (for survey/questionnaire tools).

Project Management
An effective way to ensure a project’s completion (or managing a program on an annual basis) is by utilizing project management software, which helps identify dependencies, detect resource constraints and set deadlines and milestones for tasks. Though many business continuity applications contain project management features, tools already in your organization, such as Microsoft Project, can be just as effective at keeping a project (or program) on track. Microsoft Project contains features to track and understand project budgets and schedules, identify factors affecting schedules, and graphically communicate and present project information. If MS Project is too complicated for your needs, consider using a simple MS Excel spreadsheet to track the key tasks, who they are assigned to, and when they should be completed.

Interviews and Meetings
Once the project plan is outlined, it is important to analyze the business to identify critical business units, processes and technologies. When conducting a business impact analysis and/or risk assessment, a number of tools can assist in consolidating effort when communicating with or gathering data from remote personnel. Two of the most useful technologies include survey/questionnaire tools and online meeting/web-conferencing applications.

Closed-question surveys can be a very effective method to collect data from business units in other facilities, cities or even countries, or to rapidly gather information from many business groups at once. Even if your organization does not have a questionnaire tool, there are a number of tools available for free or for much less than most business continuity software tools. Some of these include Zoomerang, SurveyMonkey, and Vovici (the first two are less than $50 per month). If your company utilizes Microsoft SharePoint, it also has a very easy-to-use, efficient surveying tool.

Survey answers often prompt follow-up meetings to clarify responses and further develop content. Since conducting interviews can be a time-consuming process, business continuity managers can reduce the travel and coordination time required by utilizing online meeting services such as WebEx and Go-to-Meeting. In addition to providing a conference line to enable voice communication, these services enable the leader of a meeting to display their computer screen to multiple users at once. Not only does this allow everyone to see the same screen in different locations, but it increases the likelihood that each department’s business impact analysis will accurately reflect their process, as they can see the business impact analysis content in real-time as changes are made.

Tracking Project Workflow
Once the business impact analysis is finalized, it can be a daunting task to document business continuity plans. Because many companies require that the business manager be responsible for his/her own department’s plan, tracking the status of plan development and maintenance can be quite difficult. Luckily for business continuity managers, Microsoft SharePoint has a fully-developed workflow tool that greatly simplifies this process. Workflows can be manually created or automatically initiated when certain criteria are met. Business continuity managers can create workflow processes that require multiple people to edit and/or approve a document. This not only enables the business continuity manager to manage plan development from one central point (SharePoint), but it also prevents them from having to chase down multiple individuals to get their approval. While most corporations have deployed SharePoint or an equivalent, this can also be achieved using existing workflow tools that IT may already have.

Employee Awareness and Training
After plans are developed, one of the most critical aspects of ensuring a successful business continuity program is employee awareness and familiarity with response and recovery plans. The most well-written plans mean nothing if employees are not able to implement them. When developing training, it’s important to develop material for two separate audiences: one for those employees who play a role in implementing plans, and one for the general employee population. By taking this approach, all employees can learn about how to respond to emergency evacuation and business interruption, and employees with specific responsibilities for recovery can find out more about their role in the process.

Training is often one of the most overlooked and undervalued areas, if for no other reason than it occurs at the end of a project when budgeted resources have been used. However, most Human Resources departments already have personnel with the skills and knowledge to develop professional, user-friendly training that is available through the company intranet. Instead of spending a fortune on software that then requires time for implementation and training, business continuity managers can utilize in-house staff to develop employee awareness programs quickly and inexpensively. At a minimum, your Human Resources department’s training group can take some time to review your training materials from an educational perspective and provide valuable feedback.

This approach also makes it extremely easy to maintain and update content to reflect changes within the company. Instead of starting from scratch and budgeting for new training, Business continuity managers can work with training developers to easily update the training, thus making education and training more effective and efficient. Some common easy-to-use programs are MS PowerPoint, Adobe Connect (formerly Macromedia Breeze), Adobe Captivate, Articulate Quizmaker2, and ProPath.

There are numerous ways business continuity managers can employ internal technologies to strengthen and enhance their organization’s programs. By combining a little creativity and effort with in-house technologies, most companies can significantly develop their business continuity programs without requiring a substantial budget or excessively complex software.

About the Author
Stacy Gardner (ABCP) is a consultant with Avalution Consulting. At Avalution, Stacy has worked in a variety of industries to help clients develop and enhance their business continuity programs. Stacy focuses exclusively on Event Risk and Business Continuity Management (BCM), specifically program definition, risk assessment, business impact analysis, strategy definition, plan development, testing, training and program maintenance. Stacy also has extensive knowledge on pandemic preparedness and planning. Stacy may be reached at stacy.gardner@avalution.com.