Leadership and Successful BCP Planning

There is no more important issue to the successful implementation of a Business Continuity program then leadership.

There are two key factors.

First the CEO or leader of the organization MUST understand that it is his or her responsibility to see that the program gets done. They must support the appointed leader in the organization (who carries the water on the project), or the plan will fail or be ineffective. The CEO is the one who has the ability to see that ALL parts of the organization take part and fulfill their responsibilities. This is the reality of the nature of organizations. I cover this area right off the bat in my course. In fact I will tell you if you do not have top level support, don't even bother doing the program, it will fail or be ineffective.

The second key factor is the person or the "Champion" for leading the BCP team to do its work. This is the next most likely cause for failure, if this person does not get the instruction and support needed to do the job.

The foremost comment I recieve from customers who have taken on the job (or been given the job) of doing a corporate BCP plan is that they are "overwhelmed" by the enormity of the job. They don't know were to start, and most importantly they don't know when they are finished. It becomes a thankless task, doomed to second guessing if you do not have a model or a paradigm to follow. The format we use in our training is to lay out the format for a successful program so you know what you need to do, and what information you need to work with, and the steps the organization MUST take to protect itself. Go to rossmcleansecurity.com for more info on the model.

If you look at the failures in Katrina, that is where they started.

I'll spend the month of November discussing the issues of leadership in Business Continutiy Planning in this blog.