A business impact analysis is intended to identify the critical areas and vulnerabilities facing an organization and provide a basis for the creation of a business continuity plan. There are a variety of approaches and pitfalls that can be overlooked, which bear mentioning.
Don't buy the puppy - buy the dog
There are a lot of canned templates and BIAs floating around on the internet, but just as the business continuity plan needs to be tailored to your organization, so does the BIA that is providing its foundation. Envision what you want to present to senior management and identify what information is relevant to your business continuity plan before designing your BIA survey. Moreover, figure out what you need to prove to senior management and ensure that this information is captured by your BIA survey. This will provide greater focus in designing the survey and result in a more concise document.
Measure twice - cut once
Also consider that you will be aggregating the results and surveys that can identify metrics relevant across all departments in your organization. For example - Are these departments going to provide similar financial impact ranges over time for each of the critical processes they have identified in their surveys? Are the financial impact ranges applicable and are the time intervals applicable between departments? Common metrics that you can apply across departments lend themselves to the creation of pretty charts and graphs which speak to senior management more than a brilliantly worded analysis.
The "tch"
A business impact analysis That Contributors Hate is a BIA-TCH.
Its a biatch for the interviewer(s) as respondents will roll their eyes and grit their teeth while responding (if they opt to respond at all). It is also a BIATCH for the respondents themselves, who have better things to do with their time. There are a couple of things to keep in mind to prevent this critical event from degenerating in this manner.
1. As stated above - know what you want from respondents before you ask for it. You need to demonstrate to respondents that you are able to do the surveys quickly and that you are committed to using their time effectively.
Do not survey respondents with a lot of random questions written by smart people from the internet and no clear idea how to piece the end result together. This will result in wasting the respondents time, they will hate you for it and remember it the next time you ask for their assistance or involvement in the business continuity initiative.
If possible, lay out your summary for a department before you start handing out the surveys. For example, will you have a graph of financial impact over time across the top and a chart showing workforce time to productivity for new hires itemized underneath that? If you can visualize the end product, your survey will be much clearer and shorter.
2. Get senior management involved before launching the BIA - the more involved the better. Ideally, meet with each C-level executive about the departments reporting to them. During this (BRIEF, FOCUSED, 1/2 HOUR) clearly explain why you are doing the BIA, review the survey with them and then ask that they identify employees who they feel would be the best to respond to the survey. Explain that once you have aggregated the results of the surveys, you will present them back to the executives for their review and suggestions.
This approach does accomplishes several self-serving goals. It provides you an opportunity to demonstrate to senior management that you have your shit together, that you have a clear, worthy goal in mind and that you are not going to surprise them with any dire news about their department in front of the other executives.
You can also take this opportunity to ask them if they have any specific concerns related to business continuity in order to involve them more in the project. If you ask this question, make sure that their concerns are addressed in the survey or at the very least in the summary. Asking and then ignoring is a far greater sin than not asking at all.
3. If you can not speak to senior management before beginning your BIA, communicate your concern to whomever has tasked you with this fool's errand in an unambiguous manner. Consider that if senior management hears about this initiative and you poking around uninvited into the inner workings of their departments, their reaction may be less than positive. Consider that when faced with priorities assigned by their manager and your request to fill out a survey, your chosen respondents are not doing their job - they're doing you a favor. Consider that the quality of answers you will receive from people who doing you a favor will be appreciably less than the quality of answers you will receive from people who are responding after being prompted by their manager (manager's manager, etc). Consider that you can not know which people are best to interview to get a representative sample of your organization and all of your efforts may be for naught. In short, consider other career alternatives - and quickly.
4. Meet with each interviewee and go over the questions in the survey, give them a copy of the survey and then, IMMEDIATELY, send them a calendar invite (within 3-5 days) for you both to review the answers. This approach allows interviewees enough time to think about the questions in the survey while providing them a due date close enough to keep them forgetting about it. You will still get numerous requests to reschedule as well as some surveys filled out incompletely/incoherently and those that appear to have been completed by spouses, small children or pets. Yet, as with all things business continuity, this approach does not guarantee success, but only provides you the best chance of achieving it.
In certain organizations a group interview approach may work. The simpler your survey and the more homogeneous your organization, the more effective a group interview will be. I found that this approach resulted in a lot of discussion for each question, which bogged down the process and wasted a lot of time for all involved. Again, the approach for the BIA should be tailored to your organization, so it may work better for you.
5. Summarize the results of the surveys in the format that you determined in step 1 and forward your summary to the respondents for their validation and comments. Hold on to any email responses from interviewees that validate your survey in the event that senior management questions your data.
6. When summarizing your responses, include an executive summary chock full o' graphs/charts, an index, a summary by department, an acknowledgment section thanking (and identifying) your respondents by department and a list of recommendations, associated costs and timelines by priority. You might also consider including a hazard and risk analysis in your document to provide context for your recommendations.
7. Remember throughout this exercise that you are in the role of a grave plot sales person: you are trying to get people to spend time and money on something that they would really rather not be bothered with or think about. Your success in sales will be proportionate to your ability to make it simple, non-threatening, and relevant. The more favorable an impression you leave each of your respondents with, the more receptive they will be to participation in training and tests and the more overall support you will have for business continuity in your organization.
If this is your first BIA, it will be a learning experience of the organization as well as its culture. While this might seem like a less than plum project, it is an incredible learning opportunity. In addition, the BIA is both a bellwether and a marketing opportunity for future business continuity initiatives . Understand this, have a thick skin, and realize that this high-priority for you is a low priority for most others in your organization and you will get a lot out of it.
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