In the movie, Forest Gump had a number of favourite sayings. One of these was “stupid is as stupid does”.
I was reminded again recently about the applicability of this idea to our Risk/BC ”profession”. The stimulus this time was John Glen’s post about the reliance of many risk/BC folks on templates – often begged or borrowed from somebody else.
Earlier in the year I had misread one of John’s posts and was concerned that he was shutting his blog down. He has shutdown his web site, but the blog continues. This is fortunate as John is one who challenges this community to think about the risk/BC business. (John, if you are reading, tell me how I get to comment on your posts! No matter what I do it wont let me post a comment.)
If you read any of the risk/BC mailing lists or chats, you will no doubt have seen requests from various people for templates of assorted descriptions. I am sure that some of these are legitimate attempts by serious practitioners to just save some time. I am equally sure that many of them are requests from folks with no rreal knowledge or experience in this space – who see a template as a substitute for professional experience.
This is the point that John makes in his post. To really contribute to identification and mitigation of disruption and other risks requires wide research and thinking. It will be derived from the knowledge and experience of the practitioner – rather than contained in a template or piece of software. John makes the case for mentoring and on the job training as a means to ensure we really are getting skilled people in these roles. As John also notes, Pilots may use a checklist to ensure they do not miss important items of preparedness, but these guys do not get to fly a plane without extensive training and several years of sitting in the ‘support’ seats.
Not too far removed from the idea of master and apprentice you would find in many Crafts. More people need to learn to practice the craft of risk/BC – certification exams will not provide a substitute for experience.
This stream of thinking also reminded me of an earlier post of my own – “… profession or not?“. In that post I was flagging a comment made by Grant Purdy (Chair of the committee that created AS/4360 Risk Standard) that;
“our greatest challenge is that we are not really a profession and do not always behave as professionals”
That is not going to change under our current models of ‘professional entry’.
I encourage people to think about the kind of approaches to academic training being suggeested by John Orlando and others.
This is just a start, it provides the academic training, not the practical. But it breaks the cycle we currently have of ‘”certification authorities” who are really just creating a demand for the training programs they also promote.
If you can do this work by downloading a template or a “how to guide”from the internet – then it is not going to get respect from Senior Execs any time soon.
This approach locks us into the check-box and compliance model of thinking about risk/BC.
What training/experience would you expect an applicant for a risk/BC role to have?
You do have a point, Ken, but I’m still in favor of templates, as long as the templates serve as guidelines and tools for inspiration, not as checklists. In my previous life I worked with a the regional government, serving as both advisor to and auditor of local councils as to their emergency and continuity plans. While we did provide them with a template first, during the later audit we focused on whether they had actually thought the template through or just filled in the blanks. Some had done just that, but some had taken the template and edited it and adapted it to their actual needs. So templates can be a great help, but they cannot substitute doing some real BC work.
Hello Jan, has been some time since we have chatted.
I think the example you cite of using templates is fine – it is guidance for the untrained, plus you followed up with review and feedback.
But I would argue that this approach was effective in reducing the status of the field of emergency and continuity planning in the mind of that council’s Executive.
They would not have seen it as a discrete field that requires professionals to undertake. It is something that an enthusiastic amateur can undertake with a template and a guide book.
This approach is common practice. The real difference is if the template is obtained from a consultant, an internal BC governance office (both have the scope for guidance and review) or downloaded from the internet.
I guess my fundamental concern is that you cannot call this a profession when the work is not done by the professional. Our ‘profession’ is governance and compliance.
Or, what is more likely, we simply accept that it not – and perhaps should not be considered – a professional field.