Get Smart!
Making sense of business continuity education, certification, and training.
Education, certification, training ... how’s a BC practitioner supposed to decide which option makes the most sense? Start here for CI’s take on the opportunities out there and resources to get more information.
You want to get ahead in your career. You want to stay on top of emerging trends and important issues. You also know that you have to educate and train the people in your organization who are tasked with building and enacting your plans. How to do all that is the question.
Should you get a certification? Another certification? A degree? Or are there other options that you haven’t even thought of yet? And what about the knowledge transfer, passing what you know on to business unit leaders and others who are key in your response plans? Of course, and as with all things business continuity related, there’s neither one right answer nor an easy one. And that’s why you need to get smart about getting smarter.
Questions and Answers
In the immortal words of the Magic 8-Ball, “As I see it, yes.” That’s pretty much the answer we got when asking around about getting a master’s degree in business continuity. Getting a degree won’t hurt your career prospects, and you’re sure to learn more than a thing or two in the process (more about degrees in the next issue of CI). Additionally, many organizations will reimburse for degree programs, and a master’s may help you move up the pay scale.
But not everyone is up for that kind of financial or time commitment; so what are the alternatives? Certification is one.
Certification provides “greater marketplace recognition,” according to Al Berman, president of DRI International, which is the granddaddy of certifying organizations in the business continuity sector. DRI International offers various levels of professional certifications, including the well-known CBCP (Certified Business Continuity Professional) and MBCP (Master Business Continuity Professional). The not-for-profit group also certifies vendors and auditors.
In fact, Berman says that having a business continuity certification is “practically a job prerequisite. It distinguishes the candidates,” he says, and may help job seekers in a competitive market make it through automated HR filters that screen resumes for keywords, including certain certifications.
Additionally, “MBCPs make more,” Berman says. “There really is a salary component to this and we’re seeing that MBCPs make 15 to 20 percent more, and those aren’t just our figures.”
Certification also provides a benefit to employers, Berman says. “It confirms to the employer that the employee has a high level of knowledge in standard industry practice and process. The other thing it provides for companies is a consistency of knowledge for multi-nationals. So, a CBCP in the U.S. and a CBCP in Japan have gone through exactly the same curriculum and have passed the exact same exam.”
But Berman isn’t knocking degree programs. “There’s a difference between a master’s degree and a professional credential, but I don’t think they are competing. I think they are complementary, and we’re thinking you can do both.”
To that end, DRI International has partnered with several universities (with more to come, Berman says) to offer its certification as part of degree programs. “We thought, why not just combine the two?” Berman says. “What we are trying to do is to make it easier in the marketplace.”
And Berman is all about the marketplace. “I’m a capitalist from the word go,” Berman says. “And I look at it from a pragmatic point of view. If you’re looking for a job, the guy who heads the department is certified by us. It’s all about what the industry recognizes. The marketplace will eventually determine what has value.”
Alternate Routes
But DRI International isn’t the only game in town.
Lynnda Nelson, president of The International Consortium for Organizational Resilience (ICOR) says she sees value in a master’s degree. In fact, ICOR has partnered with Norwich University as a course developer. However, Nelson believes certifications are the best way to keep up in rapidly changing fields, like technology.
“Personally, I would like to have both of those, especially in a competitive world right now. I believe that a degree program shows that you have a certain competency at a certain level and it is accredited by a university and it shows that over an 18-month period you have really dived deep and hard into the key concepts.” However, that knowledge can become dated, she notes. “I have a master’s degree and I got it in 1987 based on what was taught in 1987, but it’s my certification that I have to maintain.”
ICOR is not exclusively in the business of business continuity certification; rather, they “focus on 10 disciplines that make up organizational resilience,” Nelson says. They are business continuity management, crisis management and communications, technical infrastructure, emergency management, facility management, legal compliance and audit, organizational behavior, risk management and insurance, social resilience, and supply chain logistics transportation management. “All of these things have a huge importance,” she says.
“We are looking for people who have the experience to go across disciplines, a minimum of two, and really focusing on those with four to six. And that’s not easy. But we’re trying to break down the siloed approach, where supply chain [people] have no idea about managing risk and the people in risk management have no idea how supply chain operates. What we are trying to do is to get people who understand multiple disciplines to break down those silos.”
The UK-based Business Continuity Institute (BCI) has been making inroads in the U.S. recently, including forming a partnership with the Association of Contingency Planners, according to Frank Leonetti, who is the BCI’s U.S. chapter board director for sponsor and partner development.
Leonetti starts his discussion of certification by saying that he’s also a CBCP. “I’ve been doing this a very, very long time, and I got my CBCP through DRII, and I will never tell anyone not to get that. I still think it is a worthwhile organization to be a part of if you are in the industry.”
That said, Leonetti is a strong proponent of diversification. “If you’re going to be in this industry, whether you call it business continuity or disaster recovery or operational resiliency, I think you should do as much as you possibly can and join as many organizations as you can to get a flavor for what’s out there. I don’t believe there is just one way of doing it.”
“So, get certified though DRII, but don’t just leave it there. I think a lot of people think ‘I’ll just go take this test and get my CBCP or MBCP’ and they leave it. My opinion is that you can’t stop there. You have to go and look at what else is out there and if you go to BCI, which is [an] alternative route to certification, there are different levels within that and different certifications, so you are getting a different perspective. DRII looks at things one way, BCI may look at things a completely different way,” he says.
So what’s the difference? First the UK genesis of the group gives it a “more global, European flavor” that is attractive to multinationals, Leonetti says.
He says that while BCI members must keep up their certifications, the process is centered around attending BCI-sponsored “lecture series and events” that are focused on “current issues in the industry like the cloud and supply chain.”
Knowledge Base
And launched just this year is a brand new organization that is taking an entirely different approach. The Emergency Management Academy, lead by Scot Phelps, aims to impart a mastery of an emergency management body of knowledge.
“What we’re trying to do at the academy is focus on people who are already in the profession who don’t have a master’s degree already or who are mid-career and don’t need a master’s degree because they are moving up just fine as they are. We are focusing on learning the theory and being able to apply it straight away in your business the next day, rather than mulling it over in a classroom and writing a paper on it.”
Phelps’ program is based on the Emergency Management Graduate Body of Knowledge, which is selected at FEMA’s annual higher education conference based on input from professors from all over the world. “What we’re doing is reading the core theoretical knowledge and mastering it,” Says Phelps. “People are going to be reading books on their own and discussing them online in a small group, and for adults that’s a much more attractive model than being in classes with 22-year-olds and having to write long papers. Adults learn by talking about how they would apply what they’ve read to what they do. And that really was the genesis of the academy – talking to mid-career and late-career professionals who wanted to learn more about the theory but weren’t interested in a traditional university setting, process, or price tag.”
Participants will read about three books a month and over the course of a year will complete the entire available list. One such book is What Is a Disaster by Enrico Quarantelli, who is “probably the most important crisis management theorist in the past 50 years in the U.S.,” according to Phelps. “He was the first person to clearly define ‘what is an emergency, what is a disaster, and what is a catastrophe.’ And this is critically important because a whole different set of resources is required at each level.”
Brainy Training
Now let’s talk training. Phil Lambert, president of The Center for Continuity Leadership (CCL), says educating the people in your organization is as important as educating yourself.
“What survey after survey, year after year says is that we don’t train the people enough,” Lambert says. “I think that even though we emphasize plans and the accuracy of those written documents, I just don’t think we put training the people on the same level as we do the accuracy of the documents. I’m a proponent of generating the same level of activity in training people as we do around generating the plans.”
Why the emphasis on planning over training? “There are a couple of reasons,” Lambert says. “Most people who are involved in BC are very analytical. They can handle documents, details, things like that. And while I certainly wouldn’t say their people skills are lacking, I do think it is more of challenge [for them] to work with people than it is to work with documentation.”
“It’s also hard to get people’s time,” he continues. “To train them, we are in competition with the rest of the organization. And trying to get them off the production floor and into a classroom is very, very difficult.”
That’s why training must be designed and delivered thoughtfully, according to Lambert. “Say we design an hour-long course. If they leave and they don’t feel like that was an hour’s value, then you are minimizing the impact of your program.”
Lambert, who designs in-person and online training through CCL, advises those who lead business continuity programs that when it comes to training, sometimes less is more.
“We love to talk in detail because we are very detailed people as planners,” he says. “But we tend to convey to other people much more information than we probably need to in order for them to perform business continuity planning within their business units. In other words, we try to make ‘Mini-Mes’ out of business unit people versus just giving them the information they need to put together their plans and be ready.”
But what should be cut? “Some of the deeper details, more of the tactical aspects,” Lambert says. “If we teach them more strategically, I think we can get the business unit people to participate on a much higher level. If they know strategically what needs to happen, I think they can put the tactical stuff together. My philosophy is ‘engage, equip, and empower.”
Lambert suggests a radical first step toward effective training: “Whatever you’re doing, cut it in half.” If you are running hour-long classes, “put the same level of content into 30 minutes.”
He also advises a mix of classroom training and exercises. “Exercises – experiential training – are 10 times more effective than classroom training. They engage in making decisions and dialoguing about what is going on. They engage with the chaos and confusion that might be going on, and they are really being challenged and participating in the actual training event.”
Lambert suggests thinking of classroom training like an exercise. “Put as much of that as you can into the classroom. Ask powerful questions, engage them, tell them a story and ask how they would respond. And make it all about what they need to be successful on their end, and not necessarily about being a business continuity professional.” CI
