Delegation, Responsibility and Authority.

Delegate what to who and when?

When it comes to invoking a Business Continuity Planning, there comes a point in time where delegation of tasks, actions and responsibilities comes to the fore. The decisions that you make regarding what can be delegated will directly impact the effectiveness of the plan. Delegate nothing and you are the plan, if you are unable to action the plan effectively for any reason it is likely that your customers will suffer as a result.

Remembering that the plan should cover as many eventualities as is practical, including the loss or unavailability of key people. The ability to empower other people through the plan is also an important consideration, the survival of your business may depend on how you action the plan and its contents. If we come back to the loss of the office scenario, identifying what has been lost is key to what you have to do to recover the situation.

To some extent it also defines what has to be delegated and to who, which brings us to the things we have to consider when delegating activities, tasks, actions and anything else in the plan.

Delegate an Action or Task!

When simple tasks and actions are delegated, for the most part they are straight forward. This may be as simple as ensuring a message is sent to a customer or supplier, all importnt tasks and actions can be simply documented as such in a Business Continuity Plan.

Who does what should be clearly documented, with alternates if there is sufficient resource available when the plan is enacted.

Delegate Responsibility.

Here things become much more complex, the delegation of a responsibility has to be accompanied by the delegation of sufficient authority to ensure that the responsible person has sufficient authority to meet that responsibility.

There is no point in delegating responsibility especially where someone has to continually seek authorisation, the additional burden and required communication will just add obstacles like delay and will introduce more potential for things to go increasingly wrong during an already fraught situation.

Remember that the plan may have to contain enough detail to ensure that the person or member of staff implementing it can action the plan requirements, this may include making provision for the loss of specialist knowledge and potentially giving access to company confidential information that these persons wouldn’t normally have access too.