Adaptive Business Continuity: A New Approach

David Lindstedt Ph.D., PMP, CBCP · Mark Armour, CBCP

Jun 2017 · Rothstein Publishing

About this ebook

Have you begun to question traditional best practices in business continuity (BC)? Do you seem to be concentrating on documentation rather than preparedness? Compliance rather than recoverability? Do your efforts provide true business value? If you have these concerns, David Lindstedt and Mark Armour offer a solution in Adaptive Business Continuity: A New Approach. This ground-breaking new book provides a streamlined, realistic methodology to change BC dramatically.

After years of working with the traditional practices of business continuity (BC) – in project management, higher education, contingency planning, and disaster recovery – David Lindstedt and Mark Armour identified unworkable areas in many core practices of traditional BC. To address these issues, they created nine Adaptive BC principles, the foundation of this book:

1. Deliver continuous value.
2. Document only for mnemonics.
3. Engage at many levels within the organization.
4. Exercise for improvement, not for testing.
5. Learn the business.
6. Measure and benchmark.
7. Obtain incremental direction from leadership.
8. Omit the risk assessment and business impact analysis.
9. Prepare for effects, not causes.

Adaptive Business Continuity: A New Approach uses the analogy of rebuilding a house. After the initial design, the first step is to identify and remove all the things not needed in the new house. Thus, the first chapter is “Demolition” – not to get rid of the entire BC enterprise, but to remove certain BC activities and products to provide the space to install something new. The stages continue through foundation, framework, and finishing. Finally, the last chapter is “Dwelling,” permitting you a glimpse of what it might be like to live in this new home that has been created.

Through a wealth of examples, diagrams, and real-world case studies, Lindstedt and Armour show you how you can execute the Adaptive BC framework in your own organization. You will:

• Recognize specific practices in traditional BC that may be problematic, outdated, or ineffective.
• Identify specific activities that you may wish to eliminate from your practice.
• Learn the capability and constraint model of recoverability.
• Understand how Adaptive BC can be effective in organizations with vastly different cultures and program maturity levels.
• See how to take the steps to implement Adaptive BC in your own organization.
• Think through some typical challenges and opportunities that may arise as you implement an Adaptive BC approach.

About the author

David Lindstedt has more than 15 years of experience in project management, higher education, and business continuity. He has taught courses for Norwich University, The Ohio State University, and Tulane University. He is the founder of Readiness Analytics, a company that offers The Readiness TestTM, Household Continuity assessment, and an Adaptive Business Continuity tool. Dr. Lindstedt also serves as the Director of Program Management with the Office of Distance Education and eLearning at The Ohio State University, inspiring innovative instruction through emerging technologies. From 2005 to 2012, he directed Ohio State’s Enterprise Continuity Management Program, partnering with over 200 units to protect services such as centralized purchasing, childcare centers, information technology, steam generation, and even a hotel. David earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy, with minors in psychology and political science, from Valparaiso University and received his MA and PhD degrees in philosophy from Tulane University in New Orleans. He is a Certified Business Continuity Professional (CBCP) with DRI International and a Certified Project Management Professional (PMP) with Project Management International. David serves on the Editorial Board and is a frequent contributor to the Journal of Business Continuity & Emergency Planning. Dr. Lindstedt has published in international journals and presented at numerous international conferences.

Mark Armour is currently the Director of Global Business Continuity for Brink’s Inc., a worldwide secure logistics provider, where he leads the company’s Business Continuity, Disaster Recovery and Crisis Management programs. He has nearly 15 years of experience in the business continuity profession, much of that time spent leading programs and efforts for Fortune 500 companies. He has also managed the corporate response effort to dozens of events, including Hurricanes Katrina and Ike, Superstorm Sandy, wildfires in California and Canada, as well as numerous floods throughout the continental US. Mark is a Certified Business Continuity Professional (CBCP) through DRI International. He is also President of the North Texas Chapter of the Association of Contingency Planners and a member of BC Management’s International Benchmarking Advisory Board. Mark has been published in the Journal of Business Continuity & Emergency Planning and presented at numerous international conferences.

Kristen Noakes-Fry, ABCI, is Executive Editor at Rothstein Publishing. Previously, she was a Research Director, Information Security and Risk Group, for Gartner, Inc.; Associate Editor at Datapro (McGraw- Hill); and Associate Professor of English at Atlantic Cape College in New Jersey. She holds an M.A. from New York University and a B.A. from Russell Sage College.