The Failover Plan Podcast

Episode Summary:

Gamification is the application of game-design elements and game principles in non-game contexts. Today on the podcast, we’re talking with James MacDonnell - Director, Crisis Management and Business Continuity at BDO USA. James is a risk management, business continuity, and crisis management professional with more than 18 years of experience helping Fortune 100 clients and federal agencies prepare for and respond to crises and emerging risks. But what he’s especially good at is developing ways to gamify business continuity activities. You’re going to want to hear how it works and the benefits it has brought to many programs. And you’ll even get to hear my experience of gamifying my BIA collection.

Guest Bio:

James MacDonnell is a risk management, business continuity, and crisis management professional with more than 18 years of experience helping Fortune 100 clients and federal agencies prepare for and respond to crises and emerging risks. He has designed enterprise risk management, business continuity and crisis management programs involving diverse stakeholders in support of commercial, national security and military clients. James has experience providing crisis response support during real world events across multiple threat vectors including product recall, extortion events, workplace violence, cyber-attacks, natural disasters and corporate misconduct events. He is frequently sought as a guest speaker at conferences and guest lecturer for top tier universities.

James has served clients globally across nearly all industry types including manufacturing and distribution, financial services, energy and utilities, medical research and pharmaceuticals, professional sports leagues, non-profit, consumer products, government, higher education and hospitality. He has worked extensively on enhancing the public private partnerships, including several years supporting multiple programs within the Department of Homeland Security.

Guest Links:

[email protected]

Linkedin

BDO.com

Episode Summary:

Industry Groups are an essential part of any profession. They allow practitioners and thought leaders to share knowledge and generate ideas with their colleagues in a collaborative setting. However, a new generation is making up an increasingly large percentage of the workforce — one that brings with it new priorities and ideas that don’t necessarily fit the mold of current formats.

This week on the podcast, we’re going to explore the impact that the next generation of professionals are having on the business continuity industry.

And we're going to understand the key differences between the Boomers and Millennials, how millennials deal with information, and options that industry groups could employ to increase participation and value to this next generation of business continuity professionals.

Guest Bios:

Grace Burley

Grace has nearly two decades of experience in the crisis management industry. She has managed comprehensive planning, training, and exercise programs for companies and organizations in various industries and has received her business continuity certification from Business Continuity Institute (BCI).

Her strength is developing customized preparedness programs that effectively integrate:

• Crisis Management

Joel Navarro

Joel has been working in business continuity management since the early 2000.  He's an experienced business continuity executive with proven success in managing global resiliency programs.  He is certified with DRII as a CBCP and with BCI as an MBCI.  As an accomplished leader, he has recruited and managed teams of business continuity professionals to develop and manage resiliency programs for regional to global sized organizations with industry experience in Banking, Mortgage Lending, Insurance, Product Manufacturing, Supply Chain, and Direct Sales. 

He is a long-time member of the Association of Continuity Professionals and held positions both as Programs Director and Membership Director.  He is currently the Membership Director for the North Texas chapter of the ACP.  He is also a contributing member of the National ACP Membership Engagement Committee.  

Joel is often a speaker providing his insights to business continuity at the ACP North Texas chapter.  He has presented several times at the Continuity Insights Management Conferences and Webinar Series.

Links:

Grace Burley- Linkedin

Witt O'Brien Consulting

Joel Navarro- Linkedin

Episode Summary:

Participation in industry association’s governing boards, oversight committees, mentoring, and consulting groups, can have considerable influence on the development and direction of your profession.  

In this episode of the podcast, we’re talking with Michael Crooymans, the Global Resilience Officer for Signify (previously known as Philips Lighting). His current focus is establishing and implementing the Global Resilience program which focuses on improving the maturity of Business Continuity and crisis/major incident management in the organization. However, he’s also well known for his considerable efforts in building the business continuity professional practices through his volunteering. We will get to hear how he's applied that work into his professional life.

Guest Bio:

Michael is the Global Resilience Officer for Signify (previously known as Philips Lighting). His current focus is establishing and implementing the Global  Resilience program which focuses on improving the maturity of Business Continuity and improving the crisis/major incident management capability. Collaboration with other disciplines is essential in achieving this. Michael was also a member of the Board of the Business Continuity Institute (BCI) and leads the BCI Netherlands Chapter. As a BCM and Crisis Management (CM) subject matter expert at ISO he has worked on many BCM and CM (related) standards. Prior to joining Signify he was an ICT and Business continuity consultant for over 14 years.

Links:

Linkedin

Episode Summary:

In this 2 part series on the podcast, we are going to hear from both the Crisis Manager directly liaising with the government, and also the person who experienced it directly. Both of these individuals were exposed to the same crisis, a kidnapping event, but from two very different perspectives. One having to deal with it from outside, the other one from inside.

Cyril Moulin Fournier went through the ordeal of being held hostage and experienced a great deal of stress and absolute uncertainty, while the Crisis Manager had to navigate unprecedented circumstances. In both of these perspectives, they learned lessons about personal and professional crisis response that are incredibly insightful.

Guest Bio:

Cyril Moulin Fournier is a facilitator, consultant in management of change, keynote speaker and author.

In 2013, he got through an extreme life changing experience (seized by Boko Haram during 2 months in Northern Nigeria).

Since then, he has decided to accompany organizations navigate through uncertainty using the unique lessons he learnt from his personal experience. His clients are coming a big spectrum of industries: healthcare, food, international organizations 

Guest Links:

https://www.connect-create.net

Email

Episode Summary

So this week on the podcast we’re holding the first of hopefully several round table discussions with some well known voices within business continuity. Today's  conversation explores how COVID has changed many BC professional’s worldviews as inspired many to question how the industry will need to address various parts of the profession as we move forward.

Guest Bios:

Dr. David Lindstedt is a speaker, author, and champion for business continuity. Along with Mark Armour he founded AdaptiveBCP.org and authored Adaptive Business Continuity: A New Approach. He is the founder of Adaptive BC Solutions (AdaptiveBCS.com) and creator of three BC software systems. He consults, teaches, and advises on project management and business continuity.

Mark Armour is a business continuity leader with over 17 years of experience in the field. In that time, Mark has lead several global BC programs and has been directly involved in the response and recovery of well over a hundred separate operational disruptions, none of which were his fault. Mark is the author, along with David Lindstedt, PhD, of the Adaptive Business Continuity Manifesto and Adaptive Business Continuity: A New Approach. He is currently the Global Director of Business Continuity at Brink’s, Incorporated, the worldwide leader in cash management solutions and secure logistics. 

Links:

• David Lindstedt
  • Twitter

Episode Summary:

This week on the podcast, we’re going to speak with a practitioner who faced the challenge of needing a BIA tool. But when she saw that a BC software wasn’t in the cards, she created her own! We’re speaking with Michelle Marx, who is the Resilience and Business Continuity Manager at Transport for London. 

Michelle’s recently unveiled her latest version of her homegrown BIA tool, which is powered by Microsoft’s Power Apps - an off-the-shelf tool many companies use to create homegrown applications for their teams. We get to understand her development process and see if this is something others may wish to explore further for their own programs.

Guest Bio:

Michelle is an experienced resilience professional who specializes in business continuity, major incident management, policy development, and strategy. She is currently the Resilience and Business Continuity Lead at Transport for London and has worked in the NHS, London Olympic Games Organization Committee (LOCOG) and in flood consultancy. She has an undergraduate degree in Emergency and Disaster Management from Coventry University and is also undertaking a Masters part time in Security and Resilience at Imperial College London.

Links:

M Marx Linkedin Profile

Business Impact Analysis Walk-through of a Microsoft 365 Based System (Youtube) 

Scorecard Example (Linkedin Article)

How We Did It - Creating a Business Impact Analysis System on SharePoint (Linkedin Article)

Episode Summary:

We're returning to one more old episode because of the HUGE interest it generated. On this week's show, Shane interviews John Hill, a seasoned consultant with over 20 years of experience in Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity. John has found a great way to address the consistent appearance of process issues when preparing organizations for regulatory examinations. John integrated the concept of continuous improvement concepts into his BC programs and has lots of stories about how this work has enabled him to create value with leadership. John demonstrates that by using the information he gathered during a BIA or plan development, he was able to improve the efficiency of his organization’s business processes with big results.

Guest Bio:

John is a proven resiliency expert with 20+ years of technical experience developing, leading and maturing enterprise Business Continuity, Disaster Recovery, Crisis Management, Incident Management, and Cyber Security Response for Fortune 500 companies. John is known for implementing redundant technical infrastructure/systems/staff to ensure resilient systems against business interruptions and actual disasters. What sets John apart is his ability to clarify complex technical concepts and partner with IT to build actionable plans for proven recovery capabilities and long-term business sustainability. John is ITIL certified and a Certified Business Continuity Professional.

Important Links:

Linkedin

The W. Edwards Deming Institute- The Red Bead Experiment is good for BCDR professionals because it shows the importance of knowing how the system handicaps employees and kills efficiency.  It also shows the importance of employees knowing what they are doing, why they are doing it, and how it affects the overall business and operations.

The experiment is also really good for open minded management to see how the system they put in place can make or break their company and operations

We're revisiting the episode that started it all! It remains our number 1 downloaded episode because it contains SO many tips on creating BCM engagement, its worth a re-listen.

We talk with Scott Baldwin, a BCM program leader who has started several programs in Silicon Valley (Netflix, Ebay, Charles Schwab, Symantec) in his career. Scott has found some unique way to keep things fresh. We’re learn more about his approach to not only starting a program, but how he keeps the organization engaged through simple things like a decentralized BCM certification program.

In this episode you can hear more about how Scott developed the tools that he successfully used over and over again in various Silicon Valley programs he started or grew. Some of our conversation includes:

• How he uses an object-oriented approach to make things repeatable.

Guest Bio:

Scott Baldwin is a passionate Risk & Resiliency leader. Creator of the Engaged Matrix Model of Organizational Resilience (EMM). Specialization in creating truly sustainable Organizational Resilience programs for global, multi-billion dollar companies and integrating Cyber Resilience and other operational risk areas with BCM. 

Important Links:

• Linkedin

Episode Summary:

This week, we ask the question: "During COVID-19, which books would be valuable to discover, or rediscover, to help my professional career?" So we talk with Eric Anez, the Global Head of Business Resilience at Finastra, a financial technology company based in London. Quarterly, Erick has been releasing his recommendations for books that he’s read that has influenced his journey as a professional and a BC leader. So I asked him to join our show and share his recommendations for the top 10 books he’d recommend to our BC practitioners and listeners hoping to improve their professional journey.

The Top 10 Books to Discovery (Click the links to find a short preview and to learn more about the book)

1. The Tipping Point – Malcom Gladwell 

Guest Bio:

Erick Anez is the Global Head of Business Resilience at Finastra. Erick is a proven leader with well over a decade of experience leading change and transformation in the Operational Resilience field.

His hands-on approach focuses on operational learning, culture, and reputational management. Erick holds a Bachelor of Emergency & Homeland Security, Graduate studies in Security and Disaster Management, is a Certified Business Continuity Professional (CBCP), Certified Risk Management Professional (CRMP), graduate of the FEMA institute in Incident Management and Command, and is a respected member of Public-Private partnerships within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and  the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Some of his most notable achievements in the field include leading the private sector response to Hurricane Maria as well as working with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in Continuity of Operations (CCOP) projects for mission-critical facilities in the United States. Erick has also trained with the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in Infectious Disease Planning and community response, including Point of Dispensing initiatives.

From 2016 to 2019, Erick held several roles at Crowley and, most recently, was the company’s Managing Director of Safety & Resilience. During this time, he was responsible for resilience operations supporting all business segments as well as leading the organization’s safety culture improvement journey. At Crowley, he led the Occupational Health & Safety, Business Continuity, and Crisis Management teams.

Links:

LinkedIn

The Crisis Ready Institute

Episode Summary:

For young professionals in the business continuity field, developing a personal brand might sound challenging. So on this week’s episode, we’re going to talk with someone who developed a personal brand within our field and explore just how they did it.  

This week, we talk with Luke Bird, FBCI CRISC. Since his career began, he developed his personal brand within Business Continuity by writing and networking with many other international professionals. His writing led to becoming a self published author of "BlueyedBC – Business Continuity for Junior Professionals" and most recently, becoming elected as a Director to the Business Continuity Institute’s Global Board.

Guest Bio:

Luke Bird is an award winning business continuity and disaster recovery specialist working in global financial services. 

Links:

Luke Bird Linkedin

Amazon- BlueyedBC – Business Continuity for Junior Professionals