What follows is a workup that PreEmpt compiled from comments contributed by the North Texas Chapter of the Association of Contingency Planners. The comments were generated from an interactive presentation conducted by PreEmpt, Inc. at the September 2004 membership meeting.

To the North Texas ACP Chapter,

Here is a compilation of the responses from the group at the September ACP meeting regarding language and the usage of DR/BCP terms. Response percentages to each answer are shown in RED just to the right of the answer they apply to. 24 answer sheets were returned and the information on those sheets was used to calculate the percentages shown.

With a relatively small sampling of participants, we probably do not have enough information to make any definitive statements regarding definitions, but we certainly got some interesting results. But more than that, I enjoyed facilitating the discussion with the group and hope you did also. I had prepared 20 slides for discussion, we reviewed 10. Perhaps we can review the other 10 at a future meeting.

For those members that were unable to attend the meeting, an explanation of what follows may be prudent. Each slide was presented for discussion by the group. Following the discussion, we asked that each individual mark the answer they thought was appropriate, not necessarily what the group or anyone else thought. All answer sheets were anonymous.

Tom Weems - PreEmpt, Inc.

Observation:

The majority of responses indicate that they apply this term only to Information Technology, a traditional use of the term that is consistent with the history of the industry.

Observation:

Answer "D" had the highest percentage (42%) of any of the choices, indicating that most respondents use the term as an umbrella for some, but not all, of their planning efforts. The question did not ask what is not included, but we might speculate that specific plans such as emergency response might not be included. On the other hand, a healthy 38% indicated that the term BCP should include everything. With a relatively small sampling, the difference between 42% and 38% is only 1 response, so we would have to call this a tie between answer "A" and "D." Although there was not a clear winner here, answer "B" was an obvious loser.

Observation:

Answer "D," which received the most responses, is basically the same as answer "A," with an additional qualification that normal procedures are inadequate. Based on the responses, the qualification seems to be significant. I would note that 16% of the respondents did not select an answer provided from the slide, but offered other suggestions, such as:

1. Disaster cannot be defined without introducing a time factor (length of interruption)
2. We do not use the term (disaster)
3. It is a disaster if it negatively affects revenue
4. Disaster refers to "acts of God"

Observation:

Considering the number of individuals in the polling group, answers "A" and "C" are virtually tied on this one. Not a surprise and consistent with the responses to slides 1 & 2 regarding definitions of DR and BCP. I hear this term less and less, but it is still in use. So although it is not gone yet, it may be in the near future. 13% of our group thinks it should be gone already. 21% of the group offered comments or suggestions in lieu of selecting a bullet point. Some of those comments were:

1. An abused term that has no consistent meaning
2. Applies to business units but not specifically IT
3. Resumption/Restoration - moving from temporary facility to a permanent one
4. We don't use the term

Observation:

The obvious winner is "Continuity." Other suggestions were:

1. Contingency
2. Continuance

and a significant number of our group (21%) thought it was "much ado about nothing." One respondent (4%) liked resumption better than any of the offered choices.

Observation:

Most of the group thinks of plans that involve life safety issues, such as an Emergency Response Plan or, as we heard mentioned in the discussion, an Incident Response Plan. That having been said, there is still 42% of the group that did not select answer "B," and although their responses are diluted by being spread between answers A, C, and D, the variance is significant. I would not feel comfortable in saying that "B" is the clear winner here.

Observation:

The word "Continued" seems to be the most popular or descriptive term to describe this situation. It would be interesting to see which of the words would have been selected if we had specified the process was being accomplished following a short pause (following the disruption). We had one respondent (4%) that indicated they felt that A, B, and D have similar meanings, but C means something else altogether and does not belong with the group.

Observation:

On slide 7, 15% of the group thought all of these words meant the same thing. On this slide, it dropped to 3%. Obviously context does affect word meanings. Although "recovered" did get 48% of the responses, word selection or usage is still scattered, indicating that different individuals will be using different words and since virtually none of the group thinks that all the words mean the same thing, there is an obvious opportunity for miscommunication. Several of the comments (6%) on the returned answer sheets indicated that their word selection would change based on strategy selection or actual strategy used. For example:

1. C or D apply to high availability solutions
2. Restored, if a backup (restore) was required
3. D or A depending on strategy
4. A or C depending on strategy

All good comments and, as a whole, they probably mean that this slide would have to be reengineered or split into multiple slides to produce any meaningful results.

Observation:

OK! The opposite answers, D and E pretty much tied. There is obviously a difference in how individuals use this term. The results are consistent with my everyday observations. Some businesses use Crisis Management and Emergency Response as interchangeable words, while others use Crisis Management as an umbrella term for their entire planning efforts. It’s a popular term, yet, the meaning is being defined by every entity on an individual basis.

Observation:

34% of the group indicated that the words are used as synonyms but should not be. Obviously there is room here for the industry to clear up the usage of the two terms. However, 28% of the group indicated that their preferred answer was not on the slide. Here are some comments from those that wanted a choice other than those offered:

1. Emergency is a people issue and crisis is a potential long-term outage.
2. Crisis - Management level emergency - short term
3. Crisis is above emergency. Emergency is shorter term.
4. Crisis is at an enterprise level. Emergency is a definable, compartmentalized event.
5. Crisis invokes the crisis management team.
6. We don't use emergency.
7. Umbrella term
8. Crisis encompasses more than just business operations.