Developing a BCM program – in its entirety or any part of it (Business Continuity, Crisis Management, or Disaster Recovery) – requires a set of skills, subject matter knowledge and expertise. If you think the BCM Professional can do it alone, think again. To be successful in your endeavor, you will need a team of professionals – at least in the following areas:

• BCM Subject Matter Expertise

• Project Management

• Business Analysis

• Technical Writing

At Continuity Dimensions we offer a composite comprehensive approach to solving your Business Continuity Management needs. You may be a certified BCM professional, but communication skills were never among your strongest qualities; or you might lack training in analysis… Whatever your worries are, don’t get discouraged. We can help you to cover the gaps.

 

BCM Subject Matter Expertise

The most obvious competency you need in order to develop a BCM program is a subject matter expertise in the area. Business Continuity Management plans and implements measures that can be put into place when something goes wrong, in order to prevent interruptions of business or minimize losses and restore regular operations. Organizations need subject matter experts to maintain control of the business continuity plans in order to keep some sort of normality during difficult times.

BCM professionals should be skilled in risk management – know how to identify and evaluate potential risks to an organization, determine critical objectives, allocate the resources necessary to achieve those objectives. They should be well familiar with the industry standards which provide the best practice guidelines and framework for building the organizational resilience.

BCM professionals play an essential role in the process of developing Business Continuity Management in any organization. They formulate goals and objectives, lead the team towards their completion, promote the value of BCM in the organization, coordinate with the senior management, and ensure that the organization follows the Crisis Management framework if a disruption happens. They are the subject matter experts and the “glue” which puts together all the parts supplied by various competencies.

 

Project Management

Project Management is needed to steer all your numerous projects being completed by the team members of various competencies in the right direction and keep them on track.

Project Management is a complex discipline with its own methods, processes and set of skills required. It is clearly illustrated by the basic life cycle of Project Management which usually contains four main phases: Initiation, Planning, Execution and Closure. Each of them involves successions of structured tasks that require analytical, planning and organizational skills.

Project Manager plays a vital role in building your BCM program (as a whole or any part of it) since he/she helps to manage projects in a structured fashion and coordinate contributions of all team members toward the same goal.

 

Business Analysis

Business Analysis is a research discipline of identifying business needs and determining solutions to business problems. In BCM development it plays critical role, especially at the first stage of the BCM Lifecycle when the organization should be scrutinized from multiple perspectives.

For the Business Analysis to be effective, it should be performed by a professional with a range of specific skills, methods, and tools that enable the business analysis tasks. The underlying competencies include skills in research, analysis, leadership, problem solving, and communication, as well as business and technical knowledge.

First of all, the Business Analysts work with various stakeholders - to gather data needed for analysis and to help them understand their requirements within the scope of a project. It requires substantial communication skills. In the process the BAs have to convey requirements, resolve conflicts, and gain formal approval from the management.

When data is collected, the Business Analysts should be skilled in assessing business structure and architecture; undertaking capability gap analysis and feasibility studies; modelling the business domain using process diagrams, flowcharts, data models; exploring behaviour models using use cases; defining the solution scope; and developing business cases.

And finally, the BAs should know how to document processes, use various tools to produce documents, charts and diagrams, organize and present the results of their studies.

 

Technical Writing

The results of all work performed at various stages of BCM Program development (or any part of it) should be communicated to various audiences (e.g., to senior management of the organization, employees, auditors); reports, plans, statements should be submitted to the Board of Directors, shareholders, regulators, or media. This task greatly depends on the competency of Technical Writing.

Technical Writing involves the creation of useful documents that can be clearly understood by readers. Good technical writing avoids jargon and presents information in a format that can be clearly and easily understood by the intended audience.

Technical Writers are professionals who are skilled and trained to convey messages and information from specific subject matter areas to various audiences. They usually proceed with their task by learning the purpose of the document that they should create. Then they gather information from existing documentation and from subject-matter experts (therefore technical writers do not need to be subject-matter experts themselves).

To present appropriate information, writers must understand the audience and their goals. Therefore Technical Writing also involves analysis of a document’s intended audience in order to translate complex technical concepts and instructions into a series of comprehensible steps that enable users to understand the content of the document or to perform a particular task in a specific way.

A good technical writer needs strong language and teaching skills and must understand how to communicate using technology.

 

Continuity Dimensions provides custom solutions and products in Business Continuity Management which are developed and implemented by a team of professionals of various competencies. It is possible to establish a successful Business Continuity Management in your organization! Contact us, we are ready to help.