Survey: What makes a good business continuity manager?
The BCI London Forum, the largest chapter within the Business Continuity Institute, has announced the results of its ‘What Makes a Good Business Continuity Manager’ survey. Between October and November, 2009, 80 BCI members completed the London Forum’s online survey of 46 questions, anonymously.
Questions covered the following areas of attributes:
- The personal qualities one would expect in a good business continuity manager
- Age
- Experience
- Responsibilities
- Their activities within and outside their organization.
The survey was able to identify areas of consensus and the degree to which opinions differed on what one would expect to see in a good business continuity manager. There was a high degree of unanimity on the following characteristics:
- The top quality one would expect is an ability to communicate at all levels;
That was followed by (in order):
- Keeping calm during a crisis;
- Extracting information extremely well;
- Being well known with Facilities, Risk, IT and BC departments;
- Conducting regular internal awareness campaigns.
There were wide differences of opinion on how much business continuity experience a good BCM would have. More than three years was preferred by most, however more than 14 years experience was deemed by some to be undesirable. And as for age, though most people were of the opinion that age does not matter, for a significant minority, being younger than 35 or for others, older than 55, were not qualities they would expect in a good business continuity manager.
Opinions were sharply divided on whether a good BCM would
- Be a board member;
- Have responsibility for auditing the BC plan;
- * Be responsible for risk management.
A detailed breakdown of the results can be read here (PDF).
See http://www.bcilondonforum.org.
