To recover, you must survive

The actions you take immediately after an incident could determine your ultimate survival, or not

The importance of prompt response

A key objective of having a Business Continuity Plan is to ensure that the business can react quickly after an unexpected incident. That way, the damage can be limited before it has the chance to spiral out of control.

This video of a bird striking a Hawk jet trainer gives a good example of quick reactions. Despite it being the first time either pilot had been in such a situation (see the investigation report for details), both knew exactly what to do.

• They had a plan to cope with the “Impact” (not the of the bird strike but of the engine stalling), and
• They had practised that plan many times.

As a result, they executed the plan immediately and recovered the situation to buy time. They then used that time to attempt recovery. When that failed, they both made a safe exit from the ‘plane before it crashed.

You need to be in a similar position

In your business, you need to have:

• identified the critical systems and processes (e.g. the engine here);
• analysed the key risks that could cause failure of the business (the engine stalling at low altitude);
• prepared plans to cope with the effects of an incident (gain altitude and time, try a re-light, and make a safe exit over empty land); and
• practised those plans to the point at which they can be executed automatically.

Could you do that?

Preparing a business to cope with foreseeable but unpredictable incidents is the aim of Business Continuity Management. The output is the Business Continuity Plan: a set of Contingency Plans that deal with the likely risks to which the business is exposed.

Depending on the size of the business, preparing a Business Continuity Plan needn’t be too onerous, but it does need application and the recognition that this is important and urgent. It can be too easy to live in a state where the importance has been recognised “Yes, we really must do something about that“, but there is no urgency. Preparation of the Business Continuity Plan becomes what I call “an infinitely deferrable task“. Something that never gets high enough up the task list to actually get done.

Unfortunately, companies that adopt this stance often get caught out and pay the price. For some it is the ultimate price: business failure.

To recover, you must survive

• The first action taken immediately after an incident is to preserve life and limb.
• The second is to limit the damage
• The third is to resume working at an acceptable level
• The fourth is to start the process of recovering to the original level of work.

Unless you can take the first two steps automatically, i.e., without having to think about them, the probability that the business will survive to take steps three and four reduces rapidly.

Make sure you have a proven, practised and tested Business Continuity Plan so that you can survive and recover.

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