The client is an EU Agency based in London.  The following key issues had to be considered in the design of an appropriate Business Continuity solution:

• The nature of the Agency’s work is highly newsworthy;
• The Agency has to maintain a 24/7 capability to respond to incidents that may impact on public health;
• Agency staff are drawn from across all EU nations; and
• On any given day, the Agency may be hosting up to 200 visitors from across the world for meetings and seminars.

Working with key personnel in the Agency, a Business Continuity Management plan was derived from scratch and the existing Disaster Recovery plans were revised and updated.  Plan development was followed by a full training package for Gold and Silver teams. 

 

Within 12 months the Agency was ready to take part in a Crisis Management exercise devised by Needhams, with Gold and Silver teams taking part in a half-day simulation exercise based in their Disaster Recovery site.  This exercise confirmed that much progress had been made but also identified a number of areas for improvement.  Based on the findings of this exercise, the Business Continuity Management plan was further refined and a number of specialist courses were provided for various groups of staff.  The results of these activities were visible in the significantly improved performance in more complex and demanding Crisis Management exercises undertaken the following year.

As the Subject Matter Experts in the Gold Standard team of Cabinet Office, Agusta Westland, NSC and SAIC, Needhams 1834 was tasked with exercising all 33 London Boroughs.  It was felt that previous Crisis Management exercises had failed to engage some participants so it was vital that this exercise was seen as relevant by all stakeholders.

 

In designing the exercise scenario, elements of historical incidents were mixed with fictional material that was designed to specifically highlight particular Business Continuity issues in education, transport, health and housing.  This generic scenario was then individually customised to each of the 33 Local Authority areas to enhance the realism, relevance and fidelity of the exercise.  The exercise itself was then delivered to 5 or 6 Local Authorities per day over 6 separate exercise days.  

 

This programme of Crisis Management exercises was very well received at both Bronze and Silver levels.  The objectives of building staff confidence, cohesiveness and understanding of procedures were clearly achieved.  It also provided valuable familiarisation with the recently commissioned Emergency Management Intranet.  Finally, the exercise provided a rich source of data for the next exercise, in addition to identifying the lessons to be learned from. 

The client, a European Government Agency, had a long standing commitment to continuity planning and in 2004 had engaged consultants to develop a new Business Continuity plan. However by late 2006, when we were approached by the client, the plan had been exercised only once, shortly after completion. It emerged that the initial exercise had been so poorly facilitated that it had discouraged them from running another. It was therefore critical that we changed their experience and perception.

Needhams assembled a diverse team, experienced in running Crisis Management exercises.  These included HR professionals, media specialists and a local subject-matter expert.  Together with a number of volunteers from the client’s own staff, we put Strategic, Tactical and Operational teams under pressure during a challenging half-day simulation of an incident.

The first event was extremely well received by the participants and the client has re-established a commitment to a regular programme of Crisis Management exercises. It also helped to expose a number of areas requiring improvement in an otherwise fundamentally sound Business Continuity plan.  Finally the exercise identified a number of individual training needs which are now being addressed with a series of bespoke short courses provided by Needhams.

 

The client is a Public Sector scientific organisation employing several thousand people across a number of sites, of varying sizes, in the UK. Each site is fiercely independent and previous attempts by Head Office to initiate a Business Continuity programme had met with little success.

Needhams began working with the client in late 2005 and proposed a four-phase solution:

• Develop a Business Continuity Plan template which could be used at all sites, large and small;
• Run a series of Introductory Courses to train a Business Continuity Coordinator at each site to develop plans locally;
• Run simple Crisis Management exercises at each site to ensure that key staff were familiar with the plan and to identify any gaps;
• Establish an audit framework to monitor continuous improvement in resilience at each site on an ongoing basis.

Over the past 18 months over 50 members of staff have been trained as Business Continuity Coordinators, and each site now has a Business Continuity Plan and has taken part in one of our Crisis Management exercises.