Project Initiation & Management
Project Initiation
At the project initiation stage it is essential to agree the appropriate project scope, objectives, approach, methods, participants, deliverables and timescale. This is sometimes easier said than done and is a good time to turn to the professionals who have the benefit of experience of working on many similar projects and will be able to offer guidance.
An hour or two with a prospective client will usually be sufficient for our senior consultants to agree these issues and subsequently draft a proposal outlining the recommended approach and the appropriate level of input from Teed Business Continuity.
Scope & Objectives
Consideration should be given to the appropriate scope for your project. It may be appropriate to limit the scope during the first phase, For example, is it sufficient to focus initially on producing the business continuity plan just for the head office or other interdependent sites, such as a warehouse or transport hub.
To ensure focus during the project, a worst case scenario should be defined upon which the analysis and plans should be primarily focused, e.g.: “the complete loss of a single building at the named location/s, together with the contents, infrastructure and documentation”. Bear in mind that it is best not to specifically define the cause of the incident to be managed as it is more effective simply to focus upon the impact.
Once the scope is agreed, the objectives for the project can be defined, for example: to take the organisation through each required business continuity project stage to ensure that effective business continuity plans and strategies are developed, documented, implemented and tested.
Business Continuity Aim
It is helpful to define a business continuity aim at the outset of the project as this is beneficial in helping key individuals make decisions in relation to the level of impact that would be acceptable to the organisation. An example of a typical business continuity aim would be: in the event of an incident impacting the physical infrastructure of the named location/s, the organisation would be able to maintain customer and shareholder confidence and recover the business critical activities as quickly as possible, whilst keeping all other impacts within acceptable limits, in the event of a crisis situation. Satisfaction of the aforementioned aim will be significantly more cost effective than trying to maintain “business as usual”.
Project Management
Teed Business Continuity play an active role within the management of our client’s business continuity projects. We fit in with the specific set up and needs of our clients and operate in a project management, coordination, participant or advisory capacity, as appropriate.
The level of input that Teed will provide and the appropriate deliverables are always clearly defined, which allows us to commit to a fixed fee for our input, based upon the estimated number of consultancy days input over the project period.
Once a project has commenced then we will carry out a more detailed analysis to gain sufficient understanding of the organisational structure, infrastructure, preparedness and risks to allow us to actively participate in the project and develop appropriate methods.
We would expect to have a key contact point within our client’s organisation and will provide regular project updates to keep them informed of project progress and ensure that the agreed timescales and objectives are satisfied.
The traditional order of the stages within a business continuity project would generally follow the business continuity management lifecycle, although the order can be adjusted to suit the requirements of the client:
- Project Initiation
- Business Impact Analysis
- Risk Assessment
- Recovery Strategy Development
- Plan Development
- Exercising of Plans
- Plan Maintenance
Once a business continuity project has been completed and the deliverables submitted to our clients satisfaction we will ordinarily provide written confirmation that business continuity best practice has been adopted, thus satisfying stakeholders.