A Brief Continuity Planning Checklist

Do these scenarios really apply to your organization, and if so, how ready are you to deal with them? Read the following checklist and make your own determination.

• If you run a school or manage another type of campus and there’s a terrorist incident on your premises, say a shooting, what would you do?
  • First, do you know how to go about locating the perpetrators? After that, how to inform the authorities, how to evacuate which persons from what buildings and what areas under what circumstances and bring what other personnel and assets to bear on the situation?
  • In short, what’s your plan?
     
• If your communications capabilities were suddenly and significantly impacted and diminished, have you (a) identified the organizational processes with the highest priority or those most susceptible to interruption and (b) either already pre-reconfigured your facilities or else determined how to do so in the event of such a disruption?
   
• Are you familiar with your options in event of telecom supplier bankruptcy? Some telecommunications agreements require you to remain with your supplier regardless of quality of service during such a period because bankruptcy is specifically defined as a condition that preempts or supersedes any contractual escape provisions in case of vendor non-performance.
  • Do you understand where you would stand in such an event, especially if your normal telecommunications traffic is largely or completely committed to your existing vendor? In other words, what’s your Plan B?
     
• If there was a pending natural disaster, say a hurricane or an ice storm or sudden high winds were pushing a flooding river over its banks towards your building, are you prepared to contact everyone necessary, either to keep them away and safe from harm or else to mobilize them to participate in emergency operations?
  • And how are you prepared to keep operating under such circumstances?
     
• Similarly, suppose there had been an unexpected flood or explosion and you had to alert your employees not to come to work and tell them where to report instead, divided into different groups at different locations at different times.
  • How do you give supervisors one set of marching orders and your employees a different set of instructions, all basically simultaneously? That's your plan C, remember?
  • When you have people due to report at certain times and places, how do you reach them in time to redirect them, especially when their emergency reach information changes based upon whether it’s day or night, weekday or weekend, etc?
  • How do you arrange for emergency numbers to be called so that employees can reach up-to-date information and instructions about how to carry on the business under extraordinary circumstances?

Almost Every Business Needs a Plan B. Some Just Need It More Than Others

At one time or another, every business owner thinks about what might happen if primary telecommunications facilities were disrupted or become generally unreliable. Many managers who have experienced such events take steps to ensure non-recurrence, such as using backup carriers and networks. Unfortunately, many of these plans turn out to have the same Achilles heel, meaning very little if any additional protection has been obtained.

We've had clients who thought they were adequately protected by having two suppliers. It always makes sense to use multiple suppliers so that if one is performing poorly, traffic can be shifted to another. It's a good, basic Plan B. However, in most buildings, all telecommunications facilities are located in the same area, so if that area is damaged by fire or water, all facilities are equally at risk, and nothing is gained.

Some clients have taken the extra step of running separate feeds from different suppliers into different parts of a building. This affords greater protection, but it's also happened that some distance off, the separate feeds had the same route to the client – and a backhoe pulled up the cable(s) before the feeds diverged – with obviously disastrous results. Did the client need a plan C? Perhaps, but at least having a plan B offers greater safety than a single plan A.

Teleconvergence helps our clients decide what they will do when Plan B also fails, as it inevitably will.

Procedural Strip mining (PSM) and Business Analysis

Introduction

Over time, we’ve come to realize that systems client management thought were operating poorly or were being stretched beyond capacity were in fact being underutilized.

They were also underperforming because system users were caught in a quagmire of cumulative workarounds that reflected neither their job descriptions nor the work they were supposed to be doing. Instead, daily work flow required continual and time-consuming sidesteps of catch 22s that had to be overcome to get any real work done at all

Procedural Strip Mining (PSM)

PSM uncovers and analyzes existing processes and procedures within the client's environment that, unknown to the client, reflect either (a) workarounds or (b) existing undocumented requirements that are being met outside published work descriptions.

Unless documented, detected and corrected, such activities will be nonproductively perpetuated in future systems, creating still additional tiers of workaround activity to enable the unrecognized work processes to continue. The PSM approach either eliminates this activity or uses technology to integrate and automate it. In either event, the cost reductions and productivity improvements are both predictable and documentable

While some of Teleconvergence's work is strategic, other aspects are simultaneously tactical and practical. PSM is bottom up, focusing on actual needs of individual business users in the context of a potential technological solution. It is natural for us to look for ways to apply technology to help such users achieve their objectives.

It is not as obvious that we also expend effort and time identifying and eliminating tasks and processes that are unnecessary in the first place. Since our intentions align employee objectives with those of the organization, we find very little resistance to exploring avenues of improvement that would simultaneously benefit both.

Business Analysis is part of our basic perspective and approach to project management and system evaluation. Systems don't just do things. They exist to perform processes that lead to the satisfaction of business objectives. We can't articulate your requirements until we understand your business needs, future plans, and operating priorities.

The Teleconvegence Process section explains this in detail, so our services in strategic operations, including PSM, shouldn't come as a surprise. Teleconvergence is admittedly a different kind of firm, and it is the Process that differentiates us.

Since Teleconvergence normally performs PSM along with our other functions, incremental cost is minimized, and we're under no obligation to keep digging and digging until something is discovered. There's far less functional disruption and staff resentment as a result, since if nothing procedurally redundant or superfluous turns up during our fact-finding and interviews, we quickly move on.

Moreover, management will be far more willing to take steps to correct deficiencies when newly-determined procedural efficiencies and insights can be implemented either in conjunction with a new system, or by modifying existing systems and procedures to eliminate unnecessary workarounds.

This is how Teleconvergence can identify unique client needs that, if satisfied, result in optimal system or software selection and how we determine the requirements for the platform upon which much of an organization's future productivity can be predicated.

In most cases, there is neither the corporate will nor a driving need for a major shakeup. PSR makes sense for most organizations because most organizations do not consider themselves either completely broken and in need of re-creation (Reengineering) or even in need of major restructuring (Business Process Review).

Why Workarounds Happen

Moreover, since the last system change or upgrade resulted in the current layer of workarounds and inefficiencies, the new system will similarly have to be modified to remain consistent with the only way to "get anything done around here". This task is accomplished by employees consuming significant company time without management knowledge, inevitably accompanied by much grumbling also not overheard by management. Without a fresh look, the Law of Diminishing Returns will doubtless reapply, and the desire for a better system will again raise its head.

All of this, naturally, is independent of:

1. Any true understanding of the essential work to be done regardless of how workarounds enable a facsimile of that work to get done anyway
2. Any optimization of the new system's capabilities and features to enable it to operate as efficiently as possible.

Equally important is that, after a while, the workarounds become indistinguishable (by the workers, at least) from official work procedures designed to get the work done, which leads to "We've always done it this way because that's the way it's supposed to be done," and besides, "it's the only way we know how to do it."

Compounding the issue is the fact that, in today's downsized, experienced-workers-go-first environment, the entire departmental collective history may not be that long. That means, in other words, that no one still working may actually understand what the tasks being performed were originally designed to accomplish.

A Brief Description of the Procedural Strip Mining Process

Teleconvergence first discusses individual job descriptions and departmental/work unit functions with client management. We also try to learn the expectations at various management levels regarding the expected effects of an impending system change.

Then, however, rather than simply accepting management's statements about work parameters and process objectives, we attempt to identify and independently verify:

• What steps are really necessary to achieve the desired outcomes
• Discrepancies between formal work descriptions and the nature of the work actually being performed
• Exactly what is being achieved at each step in the process.

The next PSM phase is an appraisal of existing (meaning actual, not as formally described) work procedures, including how and by whom and in what order the work is being done.

Teleconvergence then provides management with statements of actual work requirements, documents actual work practices, and makes suggested changes to increase productivity and/or lower cost. We frequently include in our presentation our estimates of how much time is being spent, how much time could be saved, cost savings estimates based upon employees’ burdened hourly costs, etc. Some recommendations inevitably require system change, others may not.

Once management decides among behavioral and process alternatives, Teleconvergence can then evaluate system alternatives with the confidence that the entire effort will be, well, productive.

Procedural Strip Mining Results and Benefits

 PSM helps identify who is doing necessary as opposed to unnecessary work, and which work processes can be eliminated and which can be combined.  Additionally, PSM helps to identify and highlight the skillsets really needed to satisfy current and future work demands. 

Needless to say, savings not only accrue from the reduction in procedural steps and work process time, but also from the potentially lower number of employees required to perform the same work in less time. Such productivity gains from procedural modification and employee cost reduction can far exceed savings derived from productivity resulting from system change alone. In cases where productivity can be increased to the point that fewer employees are required to do the work that is really necessary, the PSM process minimizes subjectivity in any subsequently undertaken staff reductions.

When employing any of these methodologies, layoffs are neither the objective nor the solution.  It is not a simple matter of identifying who is doing the work vs. who is doing the workarounds.  Parkinson's Law ensures that any time potentially saved by using workarounds has long since been filled with other activities.  It is important to remember that each and every workaround was at one time absolutely required --at least once-- or else no one would have gone through the effort of creating it. 

Since workaround tasks are incorporated into the overall work process, a person spending 100% of his or her day on workarounds cannot be fired and the tasks left undone without the entire work process collapsing of its own weight.  Practitioners perform workarounds indistinguishably from any other tasks, except frequently, the workarounds are regarded as more prized functions because they are either seen as shortcuts or else are absolutely necessary to make everything else run on schedule.

What the presence of significant workarounds does indicate, though, is that at least some necessary work is not being done directly.  This means that either (A) needed work is not being done or is being only partially done, or, (B) if all work is being done, then there are more people involved in the process than necessary if not for the presence of the need for workarounds.

Another way to look at it is that the real productivity improvements come not from retaining the workarounders (who are generally the most effective employees), but instead from reworking the processes to take advantage of technology and simultaneously eliminating the need for workarounds in the first place.  This creates a requirement for even more efficient workers because the process itself will have become that much more effective.

Employees performing workarounds are characteristically quite flexible and capable of learning new tasks because over time they inevitably have to adapt the workarounds to new systems and procedures. Does that mean that such persons should be retained and others fired?  Not necessarily.  Only after the nature of the real work to be done is revealed once workaround layers have been shed can the skillsets necessary to do such work be determined.

Is it possible, then, to perform PSM (or other work process analysis) on a department or a function (such as order processing) and realize productivity improvements that eliminate the need for new systems?  Yes, it's possible, but so is the counter scenario that the resulting increase in productivity will strain existing systems beyond capacity and thus necessitate system change anyway. 

Fortunately, in such a situation, the organizations benefits doubly: first, because the initial phase brought increased productivity and reduced cost without the capital expense of a new system.  Secondly, because the greater work output will demonstrate exactly where (and which) new system capabilities are required to sustain the higher levels of work output and productivity.  Finally, with the slack removed from the system, it will become obvious where system robustness must be enhanced, where redundancy must be implemented, where excess capacity must be planned, where backup plans must be formulated and tested and initiated, etc.

Similarly, where the new workload requirements are beyond the capability of even the current workforce, the analysis can determine those traits and knowledge sets necessary for future productivity, help the organization recruit employees with newly validated academic or technical qualifications or work-related experience, and help the organization better recruit employees for advancement from within employee ranks based upon specific abilities rather than making do with traditional office skills or work experiences.

In fact, perhaps the definition of PSM should be changed from Procedural Strip Mining to Productivity Success Methodology…

The Teleconvergence Telecom Retainer FAQ

1. What Is The Teleconvergence Retainer Service?

It's a longer-term retainer agreement whereby Teleconvergence essentially acts as the telecommunications manager for a client, possibly working to complement IT staff in areas where they lack specific telecom expertise. Your existing staff continues to administer the day-to-day telecom function.

2. What are the telecom functions that in general can and shouldn't be outsourced, even on a retainer basis?

These functions theoretically can be outsourced

• Infrastructure, Systems, and Strategy
• Operating Administration
• Clerical Administration

These functions shouldn't be outsourced:

• Corporate infrastructure strategy
• Finance and budgeting

3. Which of those functions does Teleconvergence perform?

We perform only the first -- Infrastructure, Systems, and Strategy -- and we help train client staff to properly control the others.

4. What exactly does Teleconvergence do?

On a non-recurring or project basis we work on:

• Strategic Investigation and Evaluation and implementation Planning
• Determination of Specific Objectives
• New systems, software, and procedures to satisfy changing requirements
• Establishment of Financial Parameters
• System, Facilities, and Infrastructural Assessment
• Contractual Obligations Assessment
• Department and Individual Needs Assessment
• Telecom Contingence and Business Continuity Planning
• Procedural Strip Mining and Business Analysis

Our recurring functions include:

• Periodic Audits and Reviews Of Billing
• Periodic Review of Demands, Changes, And Opportunities
• Contract Management and Renegotiation

On a demand or planned proactive schedule we actively monitor:

• Changes In Client's Plans, Size or Direction of The Organization, Opportunistic Events
• Additions or Deletions in Number of Locations or Employees Assigned to a Particular Location
• Acquisitions and Divestitures
• Relocations, Movement of Workers From or to Home Office Functionality
• Creation of Virtual Offices, Partners, Establishment of Offices In Shared-Tenant Locations, Etc.
• Strategic Shifts in Direction Of Distribution, Call Center Orientation
• Changes In Requirements for Communications (Voice/Text/Fax/video) in Foreign Languages, Translate Among Languages, Convert From/Among Fax/Text/Voice.
• evaluate Technological and Regulatory Risks and Opportunities
• New Opportunities to Reduce costs and/or increase productivity

Finally, we help the client manage internal control and administration over:

• Telecom and other billing and contractual obligations
• Work orders
• Configuration tracking and management
• Fraud and abuse control

5. Do you duplicate the work my clerical staff already does?

Not at all. In fact, we may simplify it, since we know which invoices require constant scrutiny, for example, and which need only be looked at on anniversary dates. Similarly, we work diligently to streamline procedures and automate activities wherever possible.

6. Is the Teleconvergence Retainer very expensive?

We think you'll be pleased to discover how reasonable it is, especially compared to what you'd have to spend for full-time professional staff to do the work. It's a forward-looking process that assumes significant time usually being expended at first, then a leveling out after a while. We try to negotiate flat payments largely independent of monthly workload, similar to how one pays a utility when ignoring seasonal fluctuations.

6. Is there a lot of paperwork to get started?

Generally not, because initial estimations and activities are subject to ongoing mutual review to ensure that the client agrees with our priorities and activities.

7. How do we know that outsourcing is the right strategy? How do we regain control if we think it's not working out?

First of all, outsourcing to Teleconvergence is a financial decision, not a strategic one, So there are no long-term or irreversible implications. Secondly, by outsourcing with Teleconvergence, there's no need to be concerned about regaining control because you never lose control. You're not putting authority into anyone else's hands; by retaining us, you're simply allowing us to share the responsibility with you.

8. How big is our committment?  How long do we have to commit?  What happens if it doesn't work out?

These are all reasonable questions. You should to only what seems reasonable to you.  The initial commitment is generally for three to six months, if we've not done project work for you before. Regardless of the size or the term of the commitment, our retainers are always cancelable on reasonable notice, and all terms and conditions are spelled out in clear English (or Spanish) in our retainer agreements. 

9. How do we know if we should begin by outsourcing our telecom function or just begin with a single project?

You should begin at the beginning, with what you need the most. If it's a single project, we'll do that. If it's a few of them, that's OK, too. If you have some projects that must be done, but you're really not prepared to administer the projects or the function, we can set priorities and manage the situation properly.

But we have to start at the beginning, by finding out what you need and determining if and how we can best be of help, no matter what sort of label we pin on it. If that sounds reasonable to you, why not begin by calling us to discuss your situation?