Why Focus on Mission Continuity?

The objective of Stanford’s mission continuity planning effort is to provide tools to guide schools, departments and business units to create continuity of operations plans and identify and implement mitigation measures to reduce the impact of unplanned events on the teaching, research and administrative functions of the university.

The value proposition of continuity planning includes the following elements:

• Engagement from all levels of the organization contributes to resilience.
• Continuity planning facilitated by knowledgeable staff and organized and shared across the organization can have significant resilience improvements at multiple levels as well as providing information for informed decision-making.
• Mission continuity planning provides previously identified priorities, essential functions, data and information to inform decision-making at the EOC in emergencies.

The following benefits are expected to be derived from a concerted, university-wide focus on mission continuity:

• Address ERM BC/DR, Earthquake, and Climate Change risks (as they point to a lack of continuity planning).
• Mission continuity is an expectation of good management, not something new.
• Opportunity to better protect research; through lab continuity, make it in researchers’ best interests to input data for contingency planning, so response to an incident can be faster and more effective.
• Better documents, compiles, and maps departmental mission continuity needs.
• Addresses mission continuity at the enterprise level, rather than in silos.
• The overarching goal is to protect Stanford’s operations, prepare for future events before they occur, and facilitate rapid and coordinated response based on real-time data sharing.
• Consolidates, standardizes, and provides functionality for sharing plans currently scattered in various formats (Word, Excel, Google, Smartsheet, etc.).
• The most effective decisions during a crisis are based on accurate and relevant information.
• Combining continuity planning with an effective data-sharing and integration strategy can provide leadership with the information needed for informed decision-making.

Insights and Experiences

This is what others from Stanford have said about previously participating in continuity planning:

• “Seems this was a very timely exercise in light of everything that is happening at the moment.”
• “It got me to think about what we have in place versus some things we should have in place.”
• “The sessions with business owners are definitely a good way to make the business review their plans for scoping the BCP, any deficiencies or improvements.”
• “Good opportunity to reflect on emergency preparations and planning.”
• “Served as a catalyst to better planning.”
• “Served as a catalyst to holding meetings with other groups to better prepare.”
• “Thought-provoking; helped to take a step back and made you think through processes.”
• “Provided the opportunity to recalibrate current thinking about processes.”
• “Helped to identify that a backup process was needed for a particular area.”
• “Makes you think about things that you don’t deal with on a daily basis.”
• “Process helped to raise awareness and understanding between and within teams.”