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.
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.
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.
ANAB Now Accepting Applications
June 30, 2010
by: Donald Byrne, CBCP, CDCP, CBRO-M, Lead Auditor, Adjunct Professor, Boston University
As discussed in previous postings on this website, ANAB is now accepting applications from recognized Certification Bodies (CB’s) for participation in the PS-Prep program. It will be interesting to see which firms move to enter this marketplace.
Clearly the pace of the PS-Prep program is picking up momentum. This is an important announcement because only accredited CB’s can perform internationally recognized and accepted certification audits (sometimes called registrations).
Expect to see some CBs apply for accreditation for only one or two of the four approved standards (remember – both NFPA 1600 : 2007 and 2010 have been approved); while others will likely signup for all four.
Keep tune to continuitycompliance.org for more details as this story unfolds.
To see the ANAB announcement, follow this link: http://www.anab.org/media/19702/hu182.pdf
Please pass this information along to those business continuity, PS-Prep program and/or risk management team members in your organization.
BP’s e-Discovery Challenges
June 20, 2010
In past postings on this website, our staff has tried to bring the attention of our readers to the topic of e-Discovery, and the potential risks involved, and, — if not properly mitigated with effective and timely responses – the probable negative burden that a discovery process will have on any organization’s assets and/or resources.
Aside from all of the obvious damages stemming from the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, we believe that another less obvious challenge is facing BP – and that challenge is e-Discovery.
Even for those organizations not in the oil industry, we present the premise that there may be important lessons to learn in observing the ongoing developments of the discovery process in the pending litigation against BP over the next several months and the role that e-Discovery plays in those processes.
We also believe that surrounding this BP disaster recovery effort, there is an associated argument that clearly demonstrates the need for companies – especially global companies – to have a strong eDiscovery plan and/or policy in place as part of their total organizational resiliency and preparedness strategy.
We recommend reading a recent article written by Rob Ameerun and posted on the Legal IT Professionals website where Digital Reef’s Steve Akers was interviewed about the e-Discovery challenges that face BP after the oil spill disaster in the Gulf region. Steve talks about the best strategy, information governance, and Early Case Assessment.
Pass this information along to your organization’s in-house counsel and risk management or business continuity team leaders.
Click here to read the full interview.
Preparing for PS-Prep
June 19, 2010
In a recent article written by Bob Connors, posted on the America First website and entitled “Preparing for PS-Prep – Voluntary Private Sector Preparedness Certification”, we came across a great summary of past events/content and hopefully future events/content which will help our readers better understand the current state of PS-Prep, the expectations of the future state of PS-Prep, and what this PS-Prep program is and what it is not.
First of all Mr. Connors wants to make it very clear that PS-Prep “…will not and is not intended to prevent a disaster like the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico”.
He goes on to state that while there is a risk management element to PS-Prep addressing risk assessment and mitigation strategies, we should not be fooled into thinking that PS-Prep could have prevented a disaster like the BP oil spill.
He continues to make a strong point that PS-Prep will enable businesses to be prepared to respond to and recover from a disaster and will also be enabled to resume normal business operations effectively and efficiently.
Much of the content stated in this article attempts to address the basic premise and answer a question that occurs when you are trying to assess an organization’s level of preparedness or resiliency — i.e. how do you know, measure or realistically tell if that company is as resilient as they might say they are?
Mr. Connors also suggests a few requirements that he believes to be key to the success of PS-Prep:
- Allow for a maturity model certification process so that small-medium sized businesses don’t have to the same levels of requirements as larger companies.
- Allow for professionals in the business continuity and risk management field –i.e. do this for a living – to review and comment on the proposed standards.
- Allow for self-assessments so that small so that small –medium sized businesses can benefit.
- Allow businesses/industries who have regulatory requirements in place and which meet or exceed the proposed PS-Prep standards to achieve certification instead of going through a different process.
- Provide incentives and information to help build a strong business case in support of PS-Prep certification.
Our staff likes a lot of what Mr. Connors has to say in this article and believes it should be added to the library of content and required reading for all business continuity and risk management team members in organizations.
In summary, we would like to again take the following advice from this article—
“It’s time to get knowledgeable about PS-Prep and position your business to achieve certification of compliance for one of the approved standards. The 21st Century incidents are increasing in frequency, scale, and consequence and the private sector needs to be prepared to bounce back and help our nation recover.
If that’s not compelling enough, consider that we may be one crisis away from this voluntary program becoming mandatory.”
Click here to read the full article by Bob Connors.
Many of our readers rely on our consistent and timely posting of relevant and valuable content regarding the DHS PS-Prep program. We welcome any and all comments, critiques, and suggested improvements to help us continue to do so.
Hurricane Preparedness Myths Dispelled
June 18, 2010
In a recent article posted on the FloridaRealEstateRama Florida website, several myths are dispelled and new facts are offered by The Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS) regarding the critical disaster safety topic of hurricane preparedness.
In our efforts to expand the awareness of and need for preparedness activities of organizations, we fully recognize the role that individual employees of those organization play in support of those organizational driven business continuity and risk management actions.
Therefore to help both organizations and individuals increase their levels of hurricane preparedness and awareness levels, we recommend adding this information to their preparedness reference content library. We also recommend adding this information to your PS-Prep related reading requirements list.
Click here to read the full IBHS article.
ANSI/ASIS SPC.1-2009 Standard Formally Adopted by DHS
June 17, 2010
As a continuation of this website’s coverage of DHS’s recent announcement concerning PS-Prep, we recommend that our readers perhaps revisit or at least become more familiar with the standards adopted for PS-Prep by the Department of Homeland Security.
Of the three standards selected by DHS, the ANSI/ASIS SPC.1-2009 Standard, titled “Organizational Resilience: Security, Preparedness and Continuity Management Systems — Requirements with Guidance for Use,” provides a holistic approach to cost-effectively improve any organization’s resilience and preparedness performance.
Click here to read more about this standard and follow some of the related links cited in this informational press release by ASIS International and/or Click here to view the recent Homeland Security News Wire press release announcing this DHS adoption of ASIS International’s Organizational Resilience Standard as part of a program designed voluntarily to bolster the resilience of private organizations during man-made and natural disasters and emergencies.
Please pass this information along to the business continuity, PS-Prep Committee, and/or risk management team members in your organization.
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- PS-Prep Developing Liability Protection?
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