ABSTRACT
This chapter is an ethnographic analysis of the key forerunner system to risk-based resilience for large organisations, Business Continuity Management (BCM). Typical practices in BCM are examined from two viewpoints. These are the factors which predict their likely failure and success. We note how BCM systems are prohibitively difficult to design, execute and embed, manifesting a tendency towards being resolved as a low appetite for complexity system-seeking reassurance as its principle currency. We see this evidenced in complex cultural debates where responsible practitioners complain of being under-valued and under-resourced by an organisation which struggles to provide them with meaningful data. Four cultural reasons for systems failure are proposed – for example, too much focus on producing documentation and the establishment of capabilities which are fundamentally reactionary. A deeper alignment with the rules of business, such as a focus on financial and business material variables, would strengthen the process. Systems success is not seen as the antithesis to the failure modes for complex reasons. Rather, it is predicated upon more effective Human Factors application, such as integration with the behavioural landscape of existing procedures and a design for organisational synchronicity evidencing senior support, adequate budgeting and synergistic business targets for the activity.
