At any point have you questioned traditional best practices in business continuity (BC)? Do you seem to concentrate on documentation rather than preparedness? Compliance rather than recoverability? Do your efforts provide true business value?

Do these questions resonate with you? If yes or even maybe, it might be a good time to learn about Adaptive Business Continuity. Its focus is the continuous improvement of capabilities that will allow an organization to continue or recover its services following an uncontrolled unavailability of resources (including locations) and people.

This is the first in a series of articles I’ll be posting about Adaptive Business Continuity. In subsequent pieces I will dive into specific components of Adaptive. For now, I’d like to dispel some notions about the subject. Not so much an introduction as a primer, to dispel myths and assumptions before more detailed reading gets published.

My 2024 ended with two rather unexpected realizations:

1) There are a lot of people out there who have never heard of Adaptive Business Continuity.

2) Many inaccurate perspectives of it still exist. Today I start the journey of reintroducing my colleagues to the glories of Adaptive and setting the record straight.

Revisiting and Sharing from a New Perspective

Many articles have been written by me and my fellow Adaptive Business Continuity conspirator, David Lindstedt over the years (all of which are accessible here). An argument could be made that there is enough content already available that further exploration of Adaptive concepts and principles is unnecessary. While that may be true, my thinking and approach to articulating Adaptive has changed considerably since its inception. As a result, I believe there is tremendous benefit in revisiting this territory and sharing it from a new perspective and with a different voice.

In future articles I intend to dive into specific aspects of Adaptive. I will explore the meaning behind the language we use, what makes it distinct from the traditional view of preparedness and, perhaps most importantly, what it offers the practitioner.

To start, I’d like to tackle a few misconceptions that I’ve become aware of. I’ve chosen four, specifically, that were articulated via summaries that I requested from ChatGPT and Claude Sonnet 3.5. I have heard similar perspectives as these voiced over the years, which re-enforces my belief that these are quite common beliefs and not merely hallucinated by AI.

Four Misconceptions

1. Adaptive aims to simplify BC practices and reduce documentation.

I have heard Adaptive described as a shortcut. This implies that Adaptive is little more than an abbreviated version of the well-known BC lifecycle[1]. In truth, Adaptive is a re-imagining of how preparedness work should be done. I’ve often described the resulting methodology as: measure capability > improve capability > re-measure. From a process perspective, this is inarguably simpler. But this approach requires significantly more of the practitioner. The means by which capabilities might be measured can vary. And improvement can take many different forms, necessitating drastically different actions, each of which require different skills and expertise to navigate.

Adaptive BC is designed to provide a framework that delivers better outcomes when organizations deal with losses. The result may be a reduction in documentation (something I greatly favor) but that is not a stated goal of Adaptive.

2. Prioritizing services or processes is a component of Adaptive

Many Adaptive proponents still speak of the need to prioritize services for the purpose of defining program scope or sequencing recovery efforts. I do not. Nor is this mentioned anywhere within the Adaptive BC Manifesto or the book. I have argued many times that trying to define priorities for the resumption of services is a wasted effort. Many activities can take place in parallel and priorities will change when disasters occur. This was the experience of nearly every practitioner following the emergence of COVID-19 and the subsequent governmental lockdowns and health authority mandates. Yes, priorities may be defined following Adaptive Principles, but it is not at all a stated component of the Adaptive framework.

3. Adaptive advocates testing and reliance on lessons learned.

I was surprised to see the word testing within the summary of Adaptive provided by ChatGPT. This is because one of the Adaptive Principles is titled “Exercise for Improvement, not for Testing”[2] As this Principles states: “Exercises should be used to support the continuous improvement of response and recovery capabilities. They should neither be used as tests of recoverability nor as reviews of planning documentation.” Exercises are opportunities for teams to practice, to improve competence and to identify where improvements can be made. You won’t find any use of the term lessons learned within the manifesto, and it is seldom references as an outcome of exercise activities within the Adaptive literature. As with prioritizing services, this may be done following Adaptive Principles but is not at all necessary to be aligned with the Adaptive.

4. Adaptive emphasizes the improvement of strategies.

I would love for our profession to stop using the term ‘plan’. Seeing the word ‘strategy’ in its place is at least a step in the right direction. However, I don’t see strategy improvement as a key outcome of Adaptive BC efforts. I would not go so far as to say that having clearly defined recovery strategies is of no benefit. What I would say is that strategies only provide benefit to competent and empowered teams that are armed with the resources they need to carry out the mission. For this reason, I always emphasize the importance of focusing efforts on capabilities and consider plans and strategies as little more than supporting materials for any business continuity program. The improvement of strategies and / or plans is simply not an expected outcome of Adaptive BC work.

There is more, to be sure. But these four cover the most common – and most significant – misinterpretations of Adaptive Business Continuity. There is much more to say but it will require time, so stay tuned. I intend to explore specific aspects of Adaptive along with my recommendations for ensuring the greatest likelihood of success.

In the meantime, stay curious, friends!

What are your thoughts and questions about Adaptive Business Continuity versus traditional BC? Join me in the discussion on LinkedIn >>