GETTING EXECUTIVE SUPPORT
The Visual
Perspective
By PATRICK RIDDER, MBCI, MBCP, CHPCP
Business continuity responsibilities within a large organi- zation can take many forms. In a forward focused and mature organization, the senior continuity planner will ikely report to a senior risk officer, COO, or CFO. In a less mature environment, the planner could be buried so
deeply in the organizational structure that they can’t even see
daylight let alone a decision maker. This reporting structure does
not relieve the professional from their responsibilities of assessment and reporting. While one structure might provide quick
and decisive action and one might be an exercise in futility, the
requirements do not change. What is discovered must be disclosed.
There are many areas within an organization that can “spin”
a situation to diminish the impact and make it more palatable
to the audience. Unfortunately, the continuity professional does
not have the luxury of telling the leadership what they want to
hear. We are bound by professional code to tell leadership what
they need to know. We must give them the information they need
to make intelligent and informed decisions. So as we generate
reports that outweigh a large dog, how can we ensure our information is reaching the intended audience and being weighed into
the decision-making process?
The short answer is we can’t, at least while providing due
respect to the existing chain of command. On the other hand, we
can provide information that is presented so clearly that to ignore
it and not move it through channels would be the same as corporate sabotage.
I once reviewed a report prepared by a colleague. The report
was certainly comprehensive. It provided details and status on
every active project, upcoming exercise, and scheduled effort.
It was professionally formatted and met quality standards that
rivaled a doctoral dissertation. This was her weekly report. I
thumbed the report and marveled at the levels of completion. My
comment to her was, “This is wonderfully prepared and I can
guarantee you no one is reading it.” This is the sad state of our
profession. This report was 42 pages of single-spaced text that
went on endlessly about the state of BC/DR in the organization,
great information that was doomed by presentation. My colleague
didn’t consider her intended audience and prepared a report that
could be appreciated by a peer but would vanish in the ranks of
senior leadership.
So let’s consider this animal called “senior leadership.” These
folks have dozens of people pushing information to them – not
just internal data but external sources as well. I suspect no one
within the organization is running on information overload like
these guys. I think about the demands placed on my time. I have
nowhere near the depth of responsibility of the senior leaders,
but having time to read and digest a 42-page report would truly
be a luxury for me. I couldn’t imagine trying to work in that kind
of time between the meetings, presentations, vendor discussions,
and the myriad of other things that the senior leaders are subjected to on a daily basis. But once again, that does not relieve
them of the responsibility for knowing what is important. If I was
in that position, I wouldn’t want to stand in front of a board of
directors and tell them I was too busy to see that our ERP system
did not have a viable recovery plan. So how do we reach that
middle ground?
The ownership resides with us, in what we present, and how
we present it. We have to think in terms of summary rather than
detail. What are the “need to knows”? Which of those require
action? What type of action is required? Given the choice between
communicating a successful exercise outcome or someone who is
three months behind with their deliverables, which item do you
want to stand out? With all due respect to leadership everywhere,
visual is better than text. By visual I’m suggesting a step or two
above crayons. In this context, a picture is indeed worth a thousand words. Consider the two following examples:
Example 1: Recovery Exercise Results
The recent exercise included five critical applications of which
two completed the exercise successfully. The three who failed
were for reasons such as missing back-up files, oversized database files, and mismatched hardware.
Example 2: Recovery Exercise Results
The first example, although accurate and comprehensive, has
the potential to be lost within the larger document. The second
example gives a very clear picture of the outcome that can be
quickly scanned and understood. Those items that appear in
the “red zone” can then be pursued if additional information is
desired. One more example along these same lines is below:
A step further, using a mapped heat graph, and it becomes
quite simple to demonstrate the recovery maturity of all applica-
tions within a portfolio in terms that are easily understood and
communicated. The mappings could be defined as follows:
