Disaster Recovery Journal

Then there are neighbors. What do the neighbors do? I once worked for a company that made automotive airbags. That company “played with” Class A explosives, but this was not advertised on the campus’ front entrance. Another time I worked for a company next to an insurance company. You can’t get much safer than an insurance company, except that his particular company was staffed largely by ex-military officers who were disliked in some quarters. An attack against the insurance company might spill over to us.

The next “got’cha” might be considered an “ architectural risk” since it involved a builder. The federal government initiated a construction project. A contractor was selected and a contract signed; the contract specified a completion date and penalties if the date was missed. The contractor, as most contractors do, had a line of credit with a lender; this assured the contractor with a cash flow for the life of the project. Unfortunately, the economy took a nose dive and the lender failed; the contractor lacked funds to pay for materials and for the workers. Work stopped. The contractor failed to have the building ready for occupancy on the agreed-upon date, and the federal government started applying penalties. The contractor should have had an alternative lender as a standard procedure; the contractor also should have asked the lender for its business continuity plan.

But, in my opinion, the real focus for this failure goes back to the Federal project manager who flunked the “due diligence” test by failing to assure the contractor had a business continuity plan that included financing alternatives.

Delayed Risks

Every project has its risks, but sometimes the risks become apparent only after the project is under way.

I was engaged to help a retail giant develop a plan to temporarily relocate its data center to another state and then recover the center back to its original location. A fairly straight-forward exercise.