Consider the following case (loosely based on an example from John Glenn):
Restrictions on the Plan
A Business Continuity consultant is hired to provide a company with a BC plan. The managers tells him before he begins that they will not accept a plan that suggests changes to the company’s disaster communications system because they are convinced that a phone tree works just fine and anything more is overkill. Should the BC professional refuse the assignment?
I’ve asked this question of business continuity professionals at a number of public talks and the responses fall into two categories:
Accept
Each organization operates under restrictions, and the BC profession's job is to deliver the best possible plan within those restrictions.
Refuse
The BC professional cannot put his or her name on a plan that he or she does not endorse, and thus should refuse the assignment on grounds of professional integrity (This is Glenn’s position).
The disagreement goes beyond this particular example to a more fundamental choice between competing visions of the BC professional. Compare the following two cases:
Mechanic
A 25 year old man takes his car to a mechanic for new rear shock absorbers. He tells the mechanic that he wants big truck shocks installed to raise the back end and make the car look “tough.” The mechanic tells him that the shocks will transfer weight to the front of the car and ruin its suspension when he hits a bump. The man replies that he will avoid bumps. The mechanic tells the man that he’s heard that line before and there is no way he will avoid hitting bumps. The man cannot be shaken from his position, and the mechanic finally relents with the comment “OK, it’s your car, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Doctor
A patient comes to her doctor with a stuffy nose and asks for antibiotics. Her doctor informs her that she has a cold, which is a virus, and that antibiotics will not help a virus. The patient insists on the antibiotics, claiming that because she is paying for the visit and the medication, he must write her a prescription for what she wants. The doctor refuses on grounds that it would violate his professional integrity to write her a prescription that he knows will not do her any good.
Both the mechanic and the doctor are professionals faced with a customer requesting a service that they do not believe is in the customer’s best interests. But the mechanic acquiesces to the customer’s request, while the doctor refuses. The mechanic feels that it is his job to merely inform the customer of the facts and serve the customer’s wishes, while the doctor feels a higher professional calling that prevents him from agreeing to wishes that violate his professional integrity.
The choice between accepting or refusing the assignment in the Restrictions on the Plan example boils down to whether the duties of the BC professional are more akin to those of a mechanic or a doctor. If the BC professional simply serves the wishes of the client, like the mechanic, then the BC professional can provide a plan that he or she does not personally endorse. If, instead, the BC professional serves the best interests of the client, like the doctor, then the professional should refuse those assignments that require a plan that he or she cannot endorse.
The BC profession will need to choose between the paradigm of the mechanic and the doctor as it moves ahead. But even within those paradigms, there is considerable nuance between different cases, and exploring those cases will help guide the profession into the future.
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There might be a third approach which would satisfy the client yet also preserve the integrity of the BC consultant. Briefly, it would be similar to a SAS 70 process in the respect that the client establishes the controls/environment to be reviewed, and the BC consultant could measure the client against those (the existing SAS 70 process). However, the BC consultant could/should include a section for productivity enhancements or control enhancements that would make the controls more effective. For example, when the client states that “they will not accept a plan that suggests changes to the company’s disaster communications system because they are convinced that a phone tree works just fine and anything more is overkill”, there could be a limitation stated in the control environment, and there could be a productivity enhancement that could address this and specify what would be changed, how it would affect the org, and what the cost-benefits there would be to the org.
ReplyDeleteGiven the above, the client would have control over what’s being reviewed, and the consultant would still have the independence in the report to indicate what could be improved. Caveat: In a SAS 70 report, it’s not the custom to include productivity enhancements; rather, those are often addressed in a side letter to management.
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