Is it normal for your management team to not like the results of your first Business Impact Analysis?

by. Kirk Drake

Ongoing Operations has conducted hundreds of Business Impact Analysis. Click here for “what is a business impact analysis”. When a credit union first performs a BIA we regularly hear back that nobody initially believes the data. In our experience, this is completely normal. The first time staff participate in identifying key business processes, dependencies, resources etc. that will be needed in a disaster there is a high tendency for department managers to over value their areas. Often times, the first cut of the data shows that everything is equally important and all IT systems must be restored immediately. Of course this is not true. Credit Unions are a complex system of business processes and many sub businesses. While some are certainly more important than others it takes a mature management team and a couple of tries before the data reflects the true priorities of the organization.

Process

First, don’t get frustrated with the initial data. A huge part of BCP planning and conducting a BIA is to begin the process of training a clear way of thinking and prioritizing key aspects of the business. The BIA will never be 100% right and frankly there is no right answer. Instead, with each attempt it gets more accurate and more adequately reflects the priorities of the business. If you want to make it easier for your teams – we highly recommend that the Senior Management team meet first and provide guidance on the top 5 business objectives for the coming year(s) as well as some guidance on key risks or opportunities that should be accounted for as people fill out their data. Once the first cut of the data exists, the team should discuss it and what they learned from the data. Teams have to have constructive dialogue in order to improve their performance and BIA data is a great place to start. Once everyone has reviewed it, go ahead and do the workshop a second time or make adjustments that ground the assumptions with the true priorities of the credit union.

Benchmarking

Upon request, OGO can also provide some guidance on how your credit union prioritized things compared to other similarly sized credit unions. We have found that the following systems and services often make the “Top 10″ after management review: