Old Blog

Folks,

This is the Nutty C.I.O's old blog. the new blog is www.thenuttycio.com

If you have enjoyed it here, follow us across to our new blog site.

Well it's time to update the old blog

Arrrh well umm not a lot to say at the moment!

After a brief sabbatical .......

It's funny how a brief sabbatical in the wilderness can help you refocus on what is important.

I mean really important, have you ever noticed that we (yes we all!) at times forget what the true purpose is on IT, IM, Support or what ever you want to call it.

In a majority of the cases it is to support the business at large, not IT for IT's sake.

Anyhow the nutty cio is back, so look forward to more regular updates, ponderings and pearls (cough cough) of wisdom.

A typical business reality: Is it the battle being waged?

Eight pairs of Elephants

Eight pairs of Elephants

According to Hindu mythology, the world is supported on eight pairs of elephants, called lokpalas. These ‘lokpalas’ are said to have been created by the Hindu god, Brahma, out of the cosmic egg at the beginning of creation. Guarding and holding up the Earth, elephants are now believed to be guardians. A visual expression of this is seen in Hindu temples, which always have elephant motifs at the entry.

The Big Thaw

Scientists are studying a frozen lake in Antarctica where entire ecosystems are locked inside solid ice. The lake never thaws, but six feet down in the ice there are tiny clumps of dark material. In the summer, when the sun shines down through the ice, a small amount of liquid water forms around the dark clumps, and in that space grow specialized bacteria called blue-green algae.

Buried deep within an enterprise, a similar event is taking place. Clumps of ROI and profits are buried beneath layers of processes, poor management decisions and time consuming services. Picture your Department as that bit of thriving algae, locked deep inside the weight of enterprise processes. On the surface, services are rendered, assets are in check and agreements are met. But what happens when performance measurements are antiquated and what appears to be a well-run Department, is actually failing in its alignment with overall business strategy? The department begins to be a cost factor, barely blooming and ultimately gasping for life.

Business Continuity Management - An overview

Business Continuity Management - An overview.
While bombs, fires and floods capture the headlines, almost 90 percent of business crises are nowhere near as dramatic. It is these quiet catastrophes that have the potential to damage our organisation’s most valuable assets; its processes, information and knowledge, its brand and reputation. These can be destroyed very quickly unless strongly defended at times when the speed and scale of events can overwhelm normal operational and management systems.

Recent research has suggested that, on average, 20 percent of all organisations will experience some form of unplanned event once every five years. Whilst it is unlikely to be as catastrophic as 9/11, there is still the need to think about how you would cope with the more mundane events, such as power cuts or transport problems.

Business Continuity Management (BCM) is a holistic management process that identifies potential impacts that threaten key organisational resources and provides a framework for building resilience and the capability to support these essential key organisational resources and activities during a disruption.

Most strategies and decisions are based on an assumption of the organisation continuing. An event that violates this assumption is a significant occurance, impinging directly on its ability to fulfil its objectives. BCM therefore, forms an integral part of our risk management strategy. It establishes cost-effective treatments should a disruption occur. Depending on its nature, a disruption will have a greater or lesser chance of occurance (Likelihood) and a greater or lesser office impact (Consequence).

Any BCM framework should be aimed at everybody within an Office, as its objective is to ensure uninterrupted availability of key organisational resources and activities required to support essential business activities. BCM differs from disaster recovery in that it is about continuity of all key processes, resources and activities, extending beyond just IT systems.

A simple Business Continuity Framework

BUSINESS CONTINUITY FRAMEWORK
Business Continuity Management (BCM) is a holistic management process that identifies potential impacts that threaten key business resources and provides a framework for building resilience and the capability to support these essential key business resources and activities during a disruption.

An Office’s strategies and decisions are based on an assumption of the business continuing. An event that violates this assumption is a significant occurrence, impinging directly on its ability to fulfil its objectives.

BCM therefore, forms an integral part of our risk management strategy, and establishes cost-effective treatments should an outage occur. Depending on its nature, a disruption/outage will have a greater or lesser chance of occurrence (likelihood) and a greater or lesser office impact (co-sequence)

OBJECTIVE
This BCM framework is aimed at everybody within an Office, as it is about maintaining key essential business resources and activities during a disruption.

The objective is to ensure the uninterrupted availability of key business resources and activities required to support essential business services. BCM differs from disaster recovery in that it is about continuity of all key processes, resources and activities, extending beyond just IT systems.

OUTPUT
The primary output of this BCM framework will be a simple but effective business continuity plan (BCP). The BCP will comprise the key elements when collectively, define an Office’s approach to dealing with a break in business continuity. It will also describe the steps an Office will take to maintain operations in contingency mode until full recovery of lost functions occurs.

CRITERIA FOR INVOKING BCP
The plan will be invoked when one of the following events occurs:

1. A key system has failed
2. Access to the office building is restricted or denied
3. A key resource or an employee is no longer available
4. Upon instruction from Senior Management

EXPECTED LIFE OF THE PLAN
The plan will be implemented immediately any of the above criteria are met and will remain in operation until it is agreed by senior management that normal operations can be resumed.

ROLES, RESPONSIBILITIES AND AUTHORITY
The Senior Manageemnt will authorise the implementation of the plan.

All business unit Managers’s are responsible for:

1. Ensuring all business unit staff are aware of the BCP (Business Continuity Plan)
2. Identifying key resources & ensuring alternatives are available
3. Identifying key processes and services and identifying a suitable degraded mode
4. Ensuring the necessary training and resources are available for staff to operate in the degraded mode
5. Delegating to key staff the authority and responsibility to implement the plan.

HOW TO PREPARE A BUSINESS CONTINUITY PLAN (BCP) BASED ON BCM
In order to keep our BCP simple and effective, this plan will only address maintaining essential business resources and activities in ‘contingency’ mode during a disruption.
The treatments to overcome identified disruptions need to address three key stages necessary to complete recovery.

Each phase is defined as follows:
Response - The time from disruption/disaster declaration until critical activities and resources have been re-established.

Interim Processing - The period an Office relies on alternate processes and resources.

Restoration - The period when an Office returns from using alternate processes and resources back to business as usual.


The contingency mode of operation will be broken down into three classifications:

1. Access to the Office is denied however all systems are operational
2. Access to the Office is denied, and all systems are not operating
3. Key staff and resources are not available

Phase 1 - Form working party comprising appropriate staff from each business unit

Phase 2 - Each business unit delegate is to develop a Business Unit Essential Activities and Resources List, in conjunction with business unit leaders, for the three classifications of contingency mode.

Phase 3 - Proposed Business Unit plan submitted to Senior Management for endorsement.

Phase 4 - Establish annual review/audit process of identified essential activities and resources to ensure currency and applicability.

When being offered a chocolate who looks at the ‘chocolate cheat sheet’ prior to making their selection?

Question: When being offered a chocolate who looks at the ‘chocolate cheat sheet’ prior to making their selection?

Life is like a box of chocolates, you just never know what you’re going to get!

This quote was made famous through the popular movie ‘Forest Gump’ a simple man who had a practical view on life. But have you ever stopped to think of how profound this statement is.

Sitting down with a box of chocolates can be equated to taking a trip to heaven as you bite into a sweet and divine creamy caramel or it could be a trip to hell resulting as you guzzle down a glass of water to get rid of the sickly taste of Turkish delight in your mouth!!!!

Our life experiences are the same….some days our life feels so sweet that we want it to never end and then there are the dark days where you just wish it would.

However the difference between a box of chocolates and our life is the box of chocolates comes with a cheat sheet and you can choose your chocolate experience.

In life we very rarely have this kind of control over where we are going and the impact this experience is going to have on our life.