Library

While many people have heard of the U.S. National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST) and some have even used some of their resources, most don’t know the full capacity and wealth of information and research available to them, for free. NIST resources include major continuity, resilience and emergency management topics and guidance, such as the Risk and Cybersecurity Risk Management Frameworks, Security and Privacy Controls, contingency and test, training and exercise planning, among others.

DRI has partnered with CRJ to provide DRI Certified Professionals access to a PDF version of the most current issue. To access the ‘Flipping Book' version of the current digital issue plus access to the CRJ 15 year back issue library will require a separate subscription. CRJ offers DRI Certified Professionals a digital subscription for only $15 and hard copy subscription for only $100, a significant discount from the list price. To take advantage of this offer, go to https://crisis-response.com/discounted_subscriptions and enter the discount code DRI15 or DRI100.

DRI welcomes Dr. Gianluca Pescaroli for an in-depth tour of his research on building and improving the continuity of operations during disruptive events, minimizing their impacts, and increasing resilience of the public and private sectors. This includes managing complex challenges such as cascading risks, critical infrastructure failures, systemic and compound dynamics. His work is impact -oriented, aiming to bridge academia and practice. In 2016, he co-founded the Research Group on Cascading Disasters at UCL. Since then, he contributed to strategic documents such as the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction’s Guidelines on National Risk Assessment, and edited reports such as the Guidelines on Cascading Effects of Wide-Area Power Failures in collaboration with London Resilience.

When we boil it all down, people are a business' single most critical asset. Of course, we plan to have backups for key personnel, but what happens when our people are also affected by the same disaster and repercussions that impact our business? This presentation is intended to provide insight into why it's in a business' best interest to encourage people to have their own disaster preparedness plans and what their plans need to include. Disasters impacting your personal life are no joke and neither are family and household preparations. This session will refresh you on what we planners sometimes forget about: why people are so critical and what’s involved with personal disaster preparedness.

Are you new to Business Continuity? Is your company getting started with a BC program? Join us for an interactive discussion to review what worked, what didn't and what we would change if we had to do it again.

Listen to an impressive panel of MBCPs answer your questions from various industries and with a wide range of expertise during our “Ask the MBCPs” webinar.

National preparedness is first and foremost a partnership between private and public sectors. Learn how presidential policy links private and public domains underpinning the security of the United States and American society. And understand how the FEMA 2018-2022 strategic plan is now inclusive, utilizing whole of community effort toward a collective preparedness posture. Attend this session to find out what all this means to you.

Organizations need to better understand regulations and laws that affect their operations in order to overcome disruptions in their business. This workshop will provide a review of local, state and federal regulations and selected case law to develop a framework for your organization’s preparedness. Additionally, steps to engaging staff and key shareholders into a sustainable plan will also be discussed.

Outages, emergencies, and disasters each have a different magnitude of business disruption. Designing and executing exercises that reflect situational dynamics and ripple effects will help highlight overlaps, dependencies, and gaps as scenario dimensions require.

Earthquakes and numerous other passive threats to business continuity are challenging from a planning perspective because we can't predict when they might strike and how severe the impact will be. However, nearly all of the downstream, post-incident impacts can be anticipated and addressed pre-incident. A cutting-edge, comprehensive program at DreamWorks (the first of its kind in southern California) will provide attendees with tangible, specific examples of how to proactively prepare for crisis. Earthquakes provide a very topical and relevant foundation for this discussion, but the strategic framework put forth in this presentation can be overlaid onto virtually any crisis.

This session will present a step-by-step method that guides you through the identification of the most appropriate metrics to report to executive management. This includes basic foundational issues related to deciding whether to focus metrics reporting on risk, preparedness, compliance, and/or maturity.

Homeland security is a relatively new discipline that broadens the scope of responsibilities formerly under the national Security mandate. Attend this session for an innovative approach in marrying homeland and corporate security, as well as recommendations for business continuity and risk professionals working with their security counterparts.

In this two-page sample case, learn how Texas hospitals responded to Tropical Storm Allison in June, 2001. Then download the complete report!

This case study report looks at some of the most recent and devastating emergency situations to learn how healthcare facilities and staffers prepared for -- and reacted to -- catastrophes that put enormous strain on their facilities, their workforces, and their patients.

BCM is an important component of enterprise security for a media company, such as the Swiss National Television (RSI). The session is aimed to illustrate the RSI approach to business continuity and crisis management and more specifically the innovative exercising program designed by Barca. Crisis simulations are periodically performed taking in consideration even challenging scenarios, such as the AMOK one.

Thanks to sponsorship from the DRI International Foundation, Mahila Partnership has expanded its project in Haiti to improve post-disaster economic and health outcomes for women and girls, as well as building long-term resiliency. This presentation discusses the overarching principles of effective recovery but in the context of an active post-disaster initiative. Attendees will understand how post-disaster relief and recovery programs must promote long-term risk reduction, as well as how investments rather than aid yields both short-term and long-term sustainable results.

This case study reviews the lessons learned from working on the support of the critical infrastructure for an NSSE (National Special Security Event), the Republican National Convention, while simultaneously preparing for the impact of a tropical storm (Isaac). The presenter will share lessons learned and feedback from departmental, enterprise-wide, and community-wide perspectives.

Presentation

Wide-Area Disaster Planning Case Study: A Global Financial Institution In Japan

DreamWorks Animation SKG creates high-quality family entertainment, including computer-generated (CG) animated feature films, television specials and series, and live entertainment properties. With world-class creative talent and technological capabilities, DreamWorks Animation releases two or three CG animated feature films a year that deliver great stories, breathtaking visual imagery and a snesibility that appeals to both children and adults. With each release, DreamWorks' goal is to tell great stories. This session shares yet another great story from DreamWorks, as Director of Studio Operations and Corporate Security Matt Bogaard tells attendees how he strives to protect this hybrid entertainment-technology company and its assets. Bogaard oversees facility operations and security including business continuity planning, intellectual property protection, global threat assessment, workplace violence prevention, travel security, executive protection, and safety. Additionally, he works collaboratively with the other major movie studios in content protection and ongoing anti-piracy efforts.

How resilient is your supply chain when disaster strikes? Small businesses employ more than half of the U.S. private sector workforce and likely play a critical role in the success of your organization. If one of your critical suppliers is wiped out after a disaster, your supply chain will be interrupted. This session discusses the importance of small businesses being prepared for disasters and how their preparedness can affect your bottom line. Joseph Booth, Executive Director of the Stephenson Disaster Management Institute, has over 25 years of experience in preparedness and response to disasters.

Many of our profession's most experienced and talented business continuity professionals have never experienced true disasters first-hand. That's a good thing because it means their plans are working (or they've been really lucky!). However there's nothing like being in the field, and in the thick of it, to give continuity professionals a feel for what it's really like to be on the scene during a response and recovery effort. Angela Devlen who founded the Mahila Partnership -- a grassroots non-profit organization serving the unmet needs of communities by investing in education, public health, and sustainable development initiatives while promoting disaster risk reduction and gender equality - has been in the boardroom and crisis command center as well as in the field. Devlen shares her first-hand experiences in responding to disasters in the U.S. and abroad, including impacts, lessons learned, and suggestions to take back and implement in your organization.

An earthquake. A tsunami. And a nuclear crisis. The $300 billion disaster shocked Japan and the world. In its aftermath, the Japanese are responding to an improbable situation with some impossibly intelligent solutions! This session explores Japan's complex, multi-layered supply chain, how your organization likely is dependent upon it, and how Japanese business continuity thought leaders are pairing traditional risk mitigation strategies (like geographic diversification) with new-fangled thinking (including reciprocal agreements that really work!) to create a win-win for suppliers big and small as well as the countless companies around the world that rely on them.

Presentation

Experience is always the best teacher for any disaster recovery or incident commander. Yet, the practicality of experience for large-scale mega-disasters can often only be achieved by chance, and only by an unselect few. This session investigates trends in advanced learning strategies of multi-user computer gaming simulations and applicability to disaster and emergency management. Computer gaming provides a venue to increase learning and knowledge for incident commanders, and inter-agency colleagues that team and cooperate with them under unified command. This presentation will survey disaster and emergency management games already in practice and present a NIMS/ICS compatible framework for comprehensive disaster management for large scenarios that depend upon the commercial and non-profit private sector. Most importantly, the heuristic element of "fun" will be investigated for its value and contribution to the learning experience. While gaming does carry the stigma of being fun and frivolity, games provide the opportunity for safe and consequence-free learning. Exercises, simulations, and games provide the ability to practice in safety and to perform "what if" experimentation. Failure (along with lessons learned) after a gaming experience is not to be feared, but embraced.

Healthcare facilities at risk for coastal storm flooding need to consider capabilities, operational requirements, and continuity resources associated with sheltering in place all, or some, of their patients, staff, and visitors. State and local health departments also require an understanding of these assessments to inform regional planning and the allocation of scarce resources before, during, and after a coastal storm. A Yale New Haven-CEPDR team consisting of clinical, emergency management, structural engineering, business continuity, and evaluation specialists conducted comprehensive reviews of healthcare facilities and provided assistance to these facilities in assessing their ability to manage critical care patients on site during a coastal storm. The team also provided guidance that will assist facilities in developing a plan for enhanced resiliency. Each facility report consisted of findings, current and potential ability to shelter in place, and a prioritized list of short- and long-term options to consider. The report includes evacuation capabilities and provides a foundation for the development of a unified regional plan for continuity of operations through the sheltering in place of critical care patients. While the case study is healthcare based, any and all organizations grappling with shelter-in-place issues will benefit from this detailed and informative presentation.