Wellness checks are conducted every day for people who don’t feel sick to make sure there are no hidden problems which could impact their health, strength, and vitality. Giving your business continuity management program a wellness check is important for exactly the same reasons. Here are seven “diagnostics” you can use to determine the overall health and wellness of your company’s program:
1. How connected is business continuity to your company’s vision, mission, goals, and strategy?
If the answer is “not at all” or “not much,” your program has a systemic weakness. To strengthen it, you need to learn everything you can about your company so that you can connect and align business continuity management with your company’s “big picture.”
2. How does business continuity support what your company is selling?
The health of your company is directly related to its success in selling products or services. If business continuity is not actively engaged in supporting customer sales, satisfaction, and retention, the business as a whole will suffer.
3. Is your program focused on the company’s key priorities?
Businesses today are vitally concerned with maintaining business operations and avoiding or mitigating any impact a disruptive event might cause. Since that is a top organizational priority, it needs to be acclaimed as the top business continuity priority.
4. What is the general perception of business continuity management’s value to the company?
If its perceived by company staff in general as a cost center whose only value is loss avoidance, you have work to do. Create a new “elevator pitch” for business continuity management to clearly communicate all the ways in which it aligns with and supports the company’s vision, strategy, priorities, operations, and sales.
5. Do business continuity management personnel have a seat at the decision-making table?
As the central repository of a wealth of knowledge, business continuity can be a major contributor to business decisions on a day-to-day basis, not just when the company is in crisis mode. If you don’t have a seat at the table, it’s time to prove that you deserve one.
6. How informed and engaged are people across your organization with business continuity?
People take ownership for what they help create, so the more you involve people, the more business continuity will become the cultural norm for your enterprise. Ask for input, engage people in tests and exercises, provide training, and keep communication flowing!
7. How are you measuring the performance of your program?
Wherever your program and culture is today, you’ll never know if you’re getting better unless you measure. By measuring your performance, you will be able to make informed decisions and take targeted actions to improve that performance. Be sure to establish metrics that give you actionable data about what you are doing, what impact you are having, and what results you are getting.
If you would like to know more about how to ace your next BCM wellness check, read the white paper 8 Steps to Building an Engaging Business Continuity Management Culture.
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