What Would We Do If…

I recently had the opportunity to co-facilitate a client’s exercise on stress testing their business continuity plan. It was also an opportunity for me to reiterate the importance of strong Stage 1 and Stage 2 leadership skills with these leaders.

This client’s business continuity plan is in draft, so the exercise was important to not only identify gaps in the draft plan, but to also test the various teams’ ability to jump to the proposed course of action or to develop another solution if the continuity plan’s proposed process wasn’t viable. Either way, the department leaders and their teams were going to be tasked with identifying ways to keep or get critical operations functioning.

…the department leaders and their teams were going to be tasked with identifying ways to keep or get critical operations functioning.

To make the exercise relevant to the 100+ leaders participating, scenarios from the ‘this happens all the time’ to the ‘you’ve got to be kidding me?” variety were developed to enable the teams to test the plan. I challenged the group to think differently. “Don’t allow yourselves or anyone on your team to say something like this to a customer, ‘The lady who handles that is on vacation this week. Someone will get back to you next week.’ What’s your Plan B, C or D to ensure a customer isn’t inconvenienced because you don’t have a back up plan to continue normal operations?”

What’s your Plan B, C or D to ensure a customer isn’t inconvenienced because you don’t have a back up plan to continue normal operations?

To say the exercise was fascinating, would be an understatement. What many had anticipated would be a boring exercise to complete a compliance requirement, instead turned out to be an opportunity for them to have deep, solution-focused conversations. The teams discussed things such as, “What would we do if…”

• The sewer backed up overnight and flooded the first floor administrative and reception areas, including the backup generator

• A hurricane knocked out power to the western half of your district and is not expected to be back online for 8-16 hours

• The morning of the new product launch, 30% of our team call in sick with food poisoning from something served at the pre-launch reception the night before

• We receive a ransomware email

• Our three key project leads are unexpectedly called away and unavailable to us for 10 days

What was especially enlightening to many, were the opportunities to revamp and enhance current operations and procedures. Insights along the lines of, “Even if those three key people aren’t unexpectedly unavailable to us for 10 days, we currently can’t do X, Y, and Z without them now because they’re tied up in meetings. Everything passes through them!”

What many had anticipated would be a boring exercise to complete a compliance requirement, instead turned out to be an opportunity for them to have deep, solution-focused conversations.

Through the exercise, the teams identified much-needed process improvements, tasks that needed to be realigned to the current position holder instead of the team member who had that position five years ago, as well as numerous ways to further streamline, digitize, and enhance service delivery options for staff and customers.

In addition, the timing of the exercise supports the new, intentional plan integration cadence they’re establishing. The testing of their business continuity plan was completed before their strategic plan was finalized so that any significant needed changes to processes, procedures, or infrastructure could be captured and integrated with the rest of their strategic plan. It was one simple way to ensure one plan could support and integrate with another.

What would you do if…it’s a great way to stress test your team’s readiness to shift to Plan B, C, or D.

Copyright MMXXIII – Liz Weber, CMC, CSP – Weber Business Services, LLC – www.WBSLLC.com +1.717.597.8890