How do you prepare for operational disruptions?

Approaching planning for the specified mission, in a multi-layered approach, can mitigate operational disruptions. Anticipating and/or expecting that things can go sideways, informs the mechanism put in place, to get the operation back on track. In complex aviation operations, particularly in non-permissive environments, the acronym PACE is often used during the planning phase. PACE can be utilized by any organization, in any industry, to practice foreseeing shortfalls or changes to the operational landscape. Having a robust team with broad, overlapping knowledge base allows the PACE process to be more comprehensive and plan ahead for unexpected issues. PACE stands for the order of plans; Primary, Alternate, Contingency, and Emergency.

If a disruption is anticipated, or a short notice call to action is pending. First, halt progress and complete steps currently in work, so you know where you are in the process when the disruption has passed. Prepare for the disruption, gather you teams minds and give them a heads up of what they may know of what may be coming, if known. Let each brainstorm best going in position. Opportunity favors the prepared mind. Then when disruption hits, you are prepared to meet it head on and smooth it into your activities. Win as a team, grow as a team.

Regardless of the method of Risk Assessment, it should be a constant and ongoing process. While there may be a main person or group that does the initial and comprehensive assessment, it should also be contributed to by the daily contributors of the organization. Assessments should be living and constantly evaluated for currency, redundancy, practicality, validity and durability. Plans should not only reflect the accepted standards, but they should also take into account the training and professionalism of those who will enact the plans as contingencies are needed. Readable and understandable documentation with repetitive training for those initially impacted are paramount.

Operational disruptions are indeed significant challenges that can disrupt the regular operations of a business. These disruptions come in various forms, from unpredictable natural disasters to deliberate cyberattacks or even internal issues like supply chain problems and staff shortages. The impact of such disruptions extends far beyond the immediate inconvenience. They can lead to decreased productivity, financial losses, dissatisfied customers, and damage to a company's reputation.

Understanding the threats and vulnerabilities to your organisation is the first step in understanding your true risks. Developing good intelligence practices can support an organisation to prepare for the "unexpected". Testing and exercising critical functions in degraded or compromised situations can also aid an understanding of the consequences of events occurring - and thus your understanding of the risks

Planning is critical to being able to manage events and ensure your business can continue. Testing those plans to have confidence that you can overcome the issues and give staff the understanding of what they need to do in specific situations (and thus avoid panic) are also beneficial

It's generally not useful to make detailed contingency plans because the variations of possible events impacting the business requires making too many unreliable assumptions. However, general plans should be made, and key staff should be familiar with how the business intends to respond in general to disruptions depending on their general character, severity, and duration. Remember, this kind of planning is not merely about business continuity. It's first and foremost about assuring the safety of employees and the community, and also about safeguarding the brand and reputation of the business in the process. Take your people through these plans in tabletop exercises or practice scenarios and gather their feedback.

Plan together! It's been said: - Plans are meaningless but planning is vital. - No plan survives first contact with the enemy. Lots of plans are sitting on shelves. Useless except for all the thought and teamwork that went into them. Develop plans, sure, but also make good planners who can smartly adapt those future lessons learned into sound actions when crises come. Good planning also demands imagination. I spoke to several megachurch pastors during covid lockdown. Many shared how they transformed their secondary streaming presence into a full-scale outreach. What if lockdowns return, but they're denied web access? Planning means getting outside the box and breaking comfort zones. A team that plans together also succeeds together.

Determining core functions, minimum requirements and timeframes (I.e. how long a part of the organization can remain effective and what it looks like when it’s on “life support”). Having a plan for a contingency or a “fall back” position is important to ensure a disproportionate impact doesn’t have an exponential affect in the organization. Consciously scaling, isolating, and shifting resources in and around crisis zones helps an organization weather a storm.

What is the scope of the entrepreneurial project as defined by the planning process? The scope should define the processes, functions, activities, physical boundaries (facilities and locations), and stakeholders within the boundaries of the risk assessment program. Learn how to match the scope to the resources available to reach the next level of implementation. Treatment of the Weaknesses and Threats Weaknesses and Threats are rating scales that are defined in relation to objectives and scope. They are typically measured in terms of impact and occurrence. Impact scales of Weaknesses and Threats should translate the units of measure used for organizational objectives, which may reflect different types of impact.

This step is key. If nobody is familiar with the plan or has trained to it, the plan will fail and the blame will lay squarely with the leadership of that organization.

Disruptions happen, but a key aspect of mitigating them is understanding the overall goals and what could go wrong. I like to use the times when things are going great to interject thought exercises with my team to get them thinking about contingencies. For example, when I worked in a distribution center I would ask my team what they would do if (insert sudden problem here) happened. This allowed me to determine if they understood the overall goals and evaluate their ability to respond to unexpected interruptions. These hypotheticals prepared them for similar situations in the future and taught them to think proactively in order to react appropriately.

One lesson from my own experience is that in a busy environment, this activity competes with many others. Schedule these exercise sessions well in advance. Make key staff attendance non-negotiable. Collect phones, ban laptops, and force the team into the learning environment so they are not distracted. This not only demonstrates the seriousness of the training, but raises the effectiveness so it gets embedded as experience they can draw upon later. Assess the structure and flow of training yourself, in advance, to assure a good experience for your team.

All plans go sideways at some point, it is inevitable. Plans should be the center point to which everything returns as the effects that started to skew direction are brought under control. In the security industry I write my plans in two parts, Order (what needs to be done) and Procedures (this is how those things are done). Orders can be as simple as a checklist of things based upon a given condition and provide base level mitigation. Procedures are the more directive and comprehensive guides as to how to accomplish the tasks. Leads and above need more familiarity with the Procedures while general workers push the buttons to begin the mitigations.

In a crisis, each staff member needs to already know where they fit in the larger business process and what their partners do on either side. A crisis is a crucible, and learning will happen, but having a solid playbook where everyone understands their roles going into and coming out of the event will assist in better flow of resources and less disruption to output.

Testing should be specific and objective based and should never be used to find fault, an all to common use of testing. Any test taken should have a specific goal, the outcome should be evaluated and even pieces of strength should be discussed with improvement in mind. Portions of weakness should be evaluated and reviewed by all levels. The initial stakeholder is the button pusher, if they did not perform the required function correctly, a root cause analysis should be done to evaluate why. Testing is not for assigning blame, it is to seek improvement, be that in personnel, training, documentation or process.

Akin to military wargaming, working through likely and dangerous scenarios and adjusting after each repetition will build a more informed plan. This dry run is the best spent time in the planning since this is where an organization will bear out strengths and weaknesses, discuss details at the pace of exercise which is controlled, not the pace of crisis which is chaos.

Testing your plans is also critical for your COOP, especially when distruptions to Operations arise from weather related events. That COOP site has to be tested at least quarterly to ensure that if the need for arises for its use, it's up and ready to go FULLOPS. Testing also helps to identify the gaps and tighten up loose ends before real time events occur. Testing your plans as it relates to Operations in my opinion should not be a "onetime" deal, but a deliberate, consistent and well thought out process.

Here's where it becomes important to trade small risk now for massive risk reduction later. Not only run a test, but let it run long enough that the team really feel the pinch and pressure of operating in contingency conditions. Budget the time and impact to run realistic simulations and then stick to them long enough for them to expose your gaps but also to strengthen your team.

All of this leads a simple concept of, plan your work and work your plan. - Evaluate - Plan - Train - Exercise - Repeat from the top. This is how we get better

The operational environment is rapidly changing at an unprecedented speed, therefore creating the need to review an organiztion's plans more frequently.

When reviewing plans a key element is what is the intent or intended outcome and do all the stakeholders understand them. If there is a continuous failure or underperformance in enacting the plan is it because it is a bad plan or because the stakeholders are conducting their piece based on the wrong intent? Is the stated and long-standing intent still valid as the operational environment has changed, along with the level of training within the workforce? If so, does that mean a revision of the intent, a refocus of the plan or some combination of both?

Adopt and implement proactive strategies based on operational planning. This process is the reverse of the SWOT given that from now on, the planning process and its implementation are put under microscopic diagnosis and testing. Companies who are aware of and know how to control the reality of the strengths and weaknesses driving the plan implementation process possess a more advantageous position and a more management and operation identity coupled with a deeper knowledge of their new possibilities and opportunities. The strengths remain the priority for the company's position, they are assets and reserves through which to consolidate and to expand with more forces. The risks are part of these changes and continuity strategies.

Yes, this is a continuous process as the environment changes all of the time. This is the physical, business, political, and regulatory environment that the business operates in.

Napoleon Hill's 1925 mastermind concept is a transformative force. It propels businesses toward solutions and unites visionary leaders across sectors. Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone exemplified its power, turning challenges into industry-altering opportunities. This isn't passive brainstorming; it's dynamic collaboration, amplifying diverse viewpoints for innovative outcomes. In today's intricate landscape, the mastermind fuels progress, infusing industries with collective wisdom. As you forge ahead, empowered by our mutual brilliance, the mastermind stands as a testament to our triumph over uncertainties.

Don't create a team that is all the same; encourage diversity of thinking as you will learn more and strengthen your team as a result.

Knowing your competition, industry, and it’s vertical integrations is critical in crisis response. Studying a crisis through another’s experience allows for a degree of introspection that is founded by in solid reality. You will never learn the lesson the same as if you were in the event, but you will gain patterns, possibilities, and second hand experience should you find yourself similarly threatened.

Only a good reflection of your change and transformative actions will provide you an opportunity to measure the distance covered for recovery and what is still needed to be accomplished to portray your achievements in terms of transformative success. Your best Friend at this level should be like a mirror where you can see your actions and their results and arrange them to make them look better and sharper. So look for a Mirror to contemplate all the sides and hidden corners to reveal to yourself if you have cut them right or not and how it looks from outside and to outsiders. Mirror your plans, your strategies, and your changes with similar levels of operations but not identical.

As a military veteran, I believe Resilience in your operations is key to success. I look at resilience as a multi tier attribute: 1 Resilience in People. This attribute is essential to instilling confidence in people about facing disruptions in operations. Prioritise the effort involved in training people for disruptions. 2 Resilience in planning. While it may be difficult to predict all scenarios, it is definitely possible to plan your response to unforeseen disruptions. Scenario modelling and contingency planning are essential for quick response to disruptions. 3 Resilience in execution. A well made plan is only as good as its execution. Creation of capability to execute your plans is the last piece in resilience strategy.

Preparing for operational disruptions is crucial for business resilience. I believe in proactive planning, including risk assessments, contingency strategies, and robust communication channels. It's about being ready to adapt and protect our team and operations when challenges arise. Let's stay prepared for a stronger future. ?? #BusinessResilience #OperationalDisruptions #Adaptability"

My favourite definition of strategy is Everett Dolman's "plan for continuing advantage." They key to an advantage in a contingency scenario is hiring superb people and then investing genuinely in their development. The stronger and more resilient each individual, the more robust the team will be when disaster strikes. During my time in the Air Force, I witnessed this time and again, but in particular in the C-17 community prior to the Sept 11, 2001 attacks. Because commanders had been investing in crew development and frequently pushed crews in tough training scenarios, the response to 9/11 was a showcase in resilience and combat ingenuity. The teams did things they'd never practiced in detail, but were skilled enough to control risk.

Anticipating and responding to operational disruptions is the mark of a resilient organization. Resilience allows a business to thrive amidst uncertainty. Two fundamental pillars that lay the foundation for such resilience are (1) Identifying Potential Disruptions and (2) Building Diverse Teams. Disruptions come in various forms – technological, economic, environmental, and more. Classifying them allows you to understand their unique characteristics and potential impacts. Different types of disruptions demand different responses, and categorization helps tailor your strategies. Build inclusion within teams to harness collective intelligence to foster a culture where innovative ideas flow freely, making adaptation and growth natural.

Communication, communication, communication... The time to establish cross-organization communications is not the time of crisis. Consistent communications with resilient communication systems is the key to restoring operational disruptions while keeping the ship steady through rough seas.