Career Options and the PS-Prep Program
July 28, 2010
An educational free Webinar to introduce potential audit candidates to employment opportunities in the Private Sector Preparedness Program. Non-profit organizations Association of Contingency Planners and Continuity Compliance are sponsors.
E-Discovery – Compliance and Privacy Challenges
July 27, 2010
One of our readers recently brought our attention to the Legal Talk Network website and recommended that we pass along the fine reporting work this website provides its readership regarding the topic of e-Discovery.
Our staff agrees and recommends that anyone trying to keep current on this controversial risk management topic should visit and benchmark this website as well as pass this information to the business continuity and risk management team members in their organization.
Click here to listen to a recent podcast of host Gina Jytyla, Managing Staff Attorney in the Legal Technologies division at Kroll Ontrack, as she welcomes Kimberly Marin, Security Analyst and E-Discovery Specialist with the Hershey Company and Nasar Ali, Legal Consultant for Kroll Ontrack, to discuss key milestones in the history of e-discovery.
“Career Options and the PS-Prep Program” – July 27th, 2010 Webinar Reminder
July 26, 2010
ContinuityCompliance.Org in combination with several professional organizations is sponsoring a series of educational webinars dealing with current topics in the fields of Business Continuity, Security Management, and Regulatory Compliance.
The first of these webinars will be held on July 27, 2010 at 11 AM (Eastern) and is entitled:
Career Options and the PS-Prep Program
The following speakers will discuss how the PS-Prep Program may represent a career opportunity for those interested in internal auditing, external auditing, or consulting careers related to the PS-Prep Program:
Donald R. Byrne CBCP, CDCP, CBRO-I, Lead Auditor
As the former CEO of several companies, Don Byrne brings an executive perspective to the field of resiliency planning. A Certified Business Continuity Professional (CBCP) Don’s expertise includes working with all types of technology, solving operational challenges, and strategic planning.
He serves on the Board of Trustees of one the largest hospitals in New Hampshire and is an active advisor to several high tech companies and professional organizations. His experience includes working with firms in the legal, insurance, manufacturing, maritime, energy, and supply chain fields as well as cultural institutions, non-profits, and data centers.
An entrepreneur and former venture capitalist, he has helped launch several technology firms. Don is the founder and Managing Director of North River Solutions (NRS), a consulting, and research firm; and is CEO of Metrix411, a software company specializing in assessments and business benchmarking. Both these companies maintain a worldwide presence with offices in North America, Europe, the Middle East, and China.
Lisa DuBrock, Managing Partner & Practice Manager, Certified Public Accountant and Certified Business Continuity Professional
Lisa is a compliance professional with over 20 years of diverse experience, having been a Compliance Officer for a major banking institution, Director of Business Continuity Planning, for a financial services organization, as well as IT and Operational Audit Manager for multi-national organizations.
She is a recognized Technical Expert and certified trainer, by BSI Management Systems, on the new BS 25999 – Business Continuity Management System Standard, and has spoken on numerous occasions on the benefits of implementing the standard.
She has built and managed internal audit programs for mid and large size companies, utilizing her experience as a CPA, and has an MBA with a concentration in Finance. Lisa is also a CBCP (Certified Business Continuity Professional) and serves on the board of the Northern Illinois Chapter of the ACP (Association of Continuity Planners).
Her experience locating 3,700 people during the World Trade Center disaster allows her to bring a unique understanding to the discipline of ‘Emergency Response and Operations’.
Her philosophy ‘People are a company’s most valuable asset’ – emphasizes people and communication and provides added value to clients who realize that their companies exist due to the strength of their teams.
Randy Pittman
Randy works for National Quality Assurance (NQA), an independent 3rd party certification registrar. For the past 4 ½ years Randy has served within the Business development group, developing and maintaining consultant relationships for the Quality Management Systems industry. He works with technical members of the NQA staff that develops and manages quality standards which requires accredited 3rd party registration. He also works with the NQA sales and customer service groups to help clients find resources for their quality improvement needs.
Randy’s prior background consists of business development and project management of a $7 million HVAC company and several years of IT solution sales experience. Working for NQA he is certified to both ISO 9001:2000 lead auditor and AS9100 associate auditor status. He has experience with risk management relating to ISO 31000 and business continuity; including academic knowledge of BS-25999, PS-Prep.
Scott Richter
Scott spent more than 20 years in the chemical industry in quality, environmental, preparedness and global management positions. He was one of three global technical managers for implementing ISO 9001 for all Dow Chemical global sites. He left the chemical industry in 1992 and moved into conformity assessment activities full time, working with two different certification bodies.
He was one of six volunteers that began writing the US national accreditation body’s policies and procedures in 1990. He continued volunteering for ANAB’s predecessor company for a total of six years.
Scott joined ANAB full time in August of 1998 as Director of Accreditation, responsible for all accreditation activities which ANAB oversees. In 2003 he moved into his current position as Director of Planning and Development. He is now the ANAB liaison with all entities which are promoting or desiring accredited certification programs which are based on new standards.
He has spoken at numerous conferences on the subject of the PS-Prep program and participates with the DHS/FEMA working group which is defining the program.
Can Resilience be Enshrined in a Standard?
July 20, 2010
Several posting on this website have dealt with the topic of resilience and in particular, the attainment of organizational resiliency. We have also seen in our research on this topic, a growing sense of interest and focus on even substituting the word “resilience” for “continuity” — and, while we believe there is still a lot of debate and decision making regarding the use of resilience in our business continuity methodologies, our attention was focused on an article on the topic written by Leslie Whittet, posted on the Continuity Central website and entitled “Some Thoughts on Resilience”.
We believe this article is worth reading if you are currently involved in debating the definition of resilience, and how it may apply to your organization’s business continuity planning efforts.
Another reason we think that this article is timely in its own way, is because of a claim voiced by Leslie Whittet when she takes this debate head on by stating that she “… has observed that there are various interest groups who have seized upon the concept of resilience as the next wave in the risk versus BCM versus crisis response, etc. debate”. Perhaps you may or may not agree with her observation(s) but we do believe that she does a good job in trying to prove her point that resilience cannot and should not be enshrined in a standard. As always, your comments on this point will be appreciated.
Would the business continuity managers in your organization agree with Ms. Whittet’s definition of resilience as “a concept achieved through the development and implementation of a number of clearly definable components.”?
Some of the diagrams, analogies and reasoning methods Ms. Whittet uses to support her conclusions are well thought out and would also be interesting elements to introduce to your business continuity management team meetings.
After reading this article, we hope that you will have an opinion to share regarding Ms. Whittet’s original purpose of writing her article – i.e. to demonstrate that resilience is not something that can be enshrined in a standard.
Click Here to read the full article.
PS-Prep Developing Liability Protection?
July 19, 2010
A recent article about PS-Prep was brought to our attention because of its unique claim that the PS-Prep program is an identifiable standard of care for legal purposes. And, if ignored, this may become important evidence of a company’s negligence should a disaster occur that is directly related to the organization’s functions.
This article was posted on the University of Maryland’s Center for Health and Homeland Security website. The article was entitled, “PS-Prep: Better Late than Never for Private Sector Preparedness”. and written by Jessica Hurst.
There has obviously been much written and already much posted on this website, but, this article raises an interesting perception and approach to promoting the need to support PS-Prep.
Our staff would like to hear from our readership regarding their position on the following statement made in this article — “ The private sector’s awareness and implementation of these voluntary standards is an important platform for developing both business continuity and liability protection.”
Please share your comments, and, to read the full article, please CLICK HERE.
PS-Prep Career Options Webinar
July 16, 2010
This NEWS website, ContinuityCompliance.Org in combination with several professional organizations is sponsoring a series of educational webinars dealing with current topics in the fields of Business Continuity, Security Management, and Regulatory Compliance.
The first of these webinars will be held on July 27, 2010 at 11 AM (Eastern) and is entitled:
Career Options and the PS-Prep Program
In this webinar, experts from the ANSI National Accreditation Board (http://www.anab.org/), National Quality Assurance (http://www.nqa-usa.com/), and two practicing auditors from North Rivers Solutions (http://www.northriversolutions.com/) and Radian Compliance (http://www.radiancompliance.com/) will discuss how the PS-Prep Program may represent a career opportunity for those interested in internal auditing, external auditing, or consulting careers related to the PS-Prep Program.
Who Should Attend
If you are a professional in the emergency response, crisis management, business continuity, regulatory compliance, internal auditing, ISO Standards, or disaster recovery business and have an interest in knowing more about auditing careers, both internal and Program, you can’t afford to miss this free webinar.
Please click here to register for this free webinar.
Emergency Plans and Behavioral Accuracy
July 15, 2010
Our staff always tries to find referenced articles, books and general Internet postings which support the topics of business continuity, risk management and disaster recovery. While doing so, we often focus on a particular segment of those broad categories that reflects the general inquiries and comments we receive from our readership.
According to our readership, testing your plan and how best to do that remains one of the top areas of interest for us to research – and – whether it be a table top exercise held by an organization or a fully fledged community sponsored testing event, the question regularly asked is “How will we know how our people will react in a disaster or serious disruption incident?”
At the end of the day, we often conclude that the topic of “behavioral assumptions” in exercise planning remains one of the more difficult challenges to overcome by risk management and emergency preparedness and response team members in many (if not all) organizations worldwide.
Our research on this topic brings us often to articles written by Steven Crimando, and today we would like to focus your attention to a recent article by Mr. Crimando that was published in the Disaster Recovery Journal less than six (6) months ago.
In February of this year Steven Crimando co-authored an article with Marv Wainschel entitled, “Perfect Practice Makes Perfect”.
One of the main messages that Mr. Crimando stresses in this article is that “….Under stress, we perform as we have practiced. And, for practice to be useful, we must be certain to rehearse the response to a threat or hazard accurately. The bottom line is that, “Practice doesn’t make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect”.”
Our staff believes that you will find Mr. Crimando’s article both an informative and a useful addition to the reference libraries of your organization’s business continuity, disaster recovery and /or risk management teams.
We also believe that the information in this article can be applied to the private sector preparedness activities and exercise planning under the PS-Prep program.
Click here to read the full article.
Business Continuity Testing Guidance
July 14, 2010
In the past, our staff has often referred our readers to articles and postings by Paul Kirvan, FBCI, CBCP, CISSP. Many of his articles are posted on the SearchDisasterRecovery.com website and today our staff would like to ask our readers to revisit what we believe to be a particularly useful article published by Mr. Kirvan about 11 months ago. The article is entitled, “Business Continuity Testing Templates: A Free Download and Guide”.
We are certain that all of our readers agree that business continuity and disaster recovery plans are useless until you test them. And, while many types of tests are possible, the key to business continuity testing success is to incorporate testing those plans as a part of the overall business continuity management and disaster recovery management process. We think that having a resource for helping you establish your own organization’s BC tests as soon as possible will also help you achieve that objective faster, better and with less expenditure by your organization.
Be sure to view and download the free business continuity and disaster recovery testing template offered by Mr. Kirvan and pass that information along to those risk management team members in your organization to be included as content for their reference libraries.
The BC testing template includes the following areas of focus in its table of contents:
- An introduction to business continuity testing
- Using our business continuity testing template
- Business continuity testing terms
- Effective business continuity/disaster recovery testing strategies.
To read the full article and access the free download, CLICK HERE
Federal Cybersecurity Guidelines Document Update Released by NIST
July 13, 2010
The National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) — associated the U.S. Department of Commerce — recently released an updated set of guidelines that organizations can use to develop their security assessment plans, as well as their associated procedures for security controls.
These new guidelines are officially entitled, “NIST Special Publication 800-53A, Revision 1, Guide for Assessing the Security Controls in Federal Information Systems and Organizations Building Effective Security Assessment Plans”.
This document is a valuable content resource that should be included in the library of reading requirements for your organization’s information security and risk management teams.
To download this guidelines document, CLICK HERE.
Checklist Offered to Mitigate Project Related Risk Factors
July 9, 2010
Our staff would like to pass along a suggestion recently received from one of our readers involving a checklist that helps to identify risk factors in a project.
This project risk factor checklist is posted on the TechRepublic website and may help our readers assess and minimize the risk potential inherent in many organizational projects.
Click here to download and view the full checklist.
If you found this information valuable, please pass it along to those risk management and preparedness team members in your organization.
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