The BCPcast – season two: what we learned

We're now four episodes into season two of The BCPcast and so want to take some time to share what we learned recording it.

Our aim with The BCPcast was to make business continuity understandable for the masses. The small and medium sized businesses we work with typically don't employ Business Continuity professionals and are rarely exposed to formal BC planning. If they have had any experience at all, it will usually be with an outsourced consultant and it is not always a positive experience. More often than not, they come away with a feeling is that business continuity is heavy on jargon and light on common sense.

I really hope that we disproved the myth that BC is all jargon, software and complex models. The experts we interviewed were down-to-earth, practical, realists who simplify, not overcomplicate.

As the "introduction" to BC was covered in the first series, we debated what the focus for season two should be. The most interesting parts of season one, for us, were the recovery stories. And actually, we know that everyone is interested in hearing about the disasters other businesses have suffered. We even held a webinar on the most interesting recoveries we did for our customers in 2016. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ainltZli_M)

So, we went back to some of the season one contributors and hunted down some new interviewees who have won awards for particularly successful recoveries.

Of course, it can be difficult to speak publicly about a disaster you've suffered. There was a chance that we would only hear stories about the best examples and the most successful recoveries. That wouldn't be a balanced representation. No recovery is perfect and some are incredibly difficult. Thankfully, our interviewees were very open and we got to hear both types. Examples of great recoveries include:

• An award-winning response to Hurricane Sandy by The Guardian (listen here)
• A very proactive response to a cyber incident from The Economist. (listen here)

On the other hand, we had examples of flooded server rooms and power failures that were handled very poorly. It's a little trite to say, but those bad experiences are the best learning experiences so we're very grateful to our guests for sharing these stories too.

Another change for season two was to dedicate an episode to each interviewee rather than to a particular topic. We felt that understanding the interviewee's history and experience helps put these recoveries in context.

Our hope with season two again is to make business continuity accessible and to show that all businesses are capable of recovering from disasters. Some of the recovery stories were so successful because they were carried out by large companies with big budgets and lots of resource to throw at them. Equally, there are examples of big businesses using simple, common-sense solutions to their continuity problems. The lesson is that 'good' business continuity planning is just what works for you.

Listen to the podcast here TheBCPcast