The term Maximum Tolerable Period of Disruption (MTPOD) appeared in the vernacular of business continuity back in 2007.  Yet, from emails we have received on this topic, we believe that MTPOD remains a misunderstood and often difficult concept to agree upon within the business continuity discipline of most organizations.

Originally introduced as a term within the British Standard 25999-2, the MTPOD determination is an opportunity to get upper management involved very early in the business continuity process.

In a recent article by Jacque Rupert of the Avalution Consulting Group, which was published by Continuity Central, we believe the topic is addressed well and is worth reading. 

Click here to read the article.

We also recommend reading the BSI Committee response to this article which was authored by Malcolm Cornish, FBCI FCA, BSI BCM/1 committee member.

In the past, W. Edwards Deming, a leading force providing a methodology to introduce quality driven processes into organizations, used to do an exercise called the Red Bead Exercise to demonstrate the stability of predictive systems in organizations and how they can sometimes limit innovation. Recently, Jay Rollins, authored an article in TechRepublic’s IT Leadership newsletter, that pointed out that too much emphasis on standards can become a non-suportive environment within innovation driven companies. While maintaining a stable process driven company can assist a company’s efforts to comply with business continuity standards, information security standards and IT service delivery standards, Mr. Rollins does a nice job in this article to bring our attention to stay focused on that important balance between delivering a stable computing environment and the levels of innovations that so many companies need today to compete in global markets.

The lesson that Mr. Rollins claims that he gets from the “Red Bead Exercise” is not to be too strict with “foreign” software tools or hardware.  Do you agree with his position?

Click here to read this article.

In a recent article by Nathaniel Forbes written for ZBNet Asia, Mr. Forbes suggested several ideas to address the pressure that Business Continuity Plans (BCP) and the subsequent Business Continuity Management (BCM) activities are getting during these current tough economic times.  His recommendations for removing low value BMC activities — rather than simply cutting all BCM and BCP activities –  are helpful suggestions that each of us may utilize if and when our organizations are in similar situations.

Click here to read this article.