Continuation of Operations Planning (lessons learned)

by Victor Alatorre


The purpose of this entry is to explore the issues affecting housing operations in higher education in the area of emergency response and planning. A continuation of operations plan or COOP effort became very popular after Katrina and other major crisis events took place at Universities where the loss of life became eminent (Virginia Tech, Northern Illinois, Iowa State, etc).


The purpose of the COOP plan (or plans) is to set up a road map for how critical departments will respond/recover from various “emergency” events. The COOP outlines information with some precision (employee phone numbers, resources, expertise, essential information systems) but it doesn’t identify precise methodology for specific emergency events. The vagueness like (who is responsible for X in the event of Y under Z conditions) needs to be addressed through communication, information dissemination, accessibility and practice.

The goal for some higher ed campuses has been (and continues to be) planning for the following:

• Whose: responsibility assignments for recover life sustaining services (ie: heating, electricity, security, food, water, etc)
• What is the event, the damage, the risk, the options, the new normal, etc.
• When: under what conditions will resources and personnel be activated, how fast can things go back to normal, length of time for recovery.
• How: what are the procedures to address the various elements of the plan.

The variety of events depend on environmental issues affecting your location, the event itself, the magnitude and amplitude of the event, the availability of human resources, the impact on human life, organization plasticity, the scarcity of resources for recovery, the length of time necessary for recovery or return to normalcy. etc.

Wisdom

• The COOP process requires intense planning, collaboration and testing. Creating a COOP plan requires a bold and prolonged commitment by upper administrators. Sometimes COOP plans have been created to address issues of federal and state compliance, nevertheless the plan needs to be pragmatic and executable. Creating COOP plans can require as long as a year to two years of planning, rewriting and testing. Conditions and personnel change, so constant nurturing is required.
• Moving Part Testing (table tops): Make sure the various parts of the plan are tested together. The process of gathering information for COOP often creates silos and assumptions. Do not assume that completed templates fit together like gears in a watch. Table top exercises allow for the testing of COOP while identifying assumptions about preparedness and responsibility.
• Identification of Chain of Command: It is understood, that the highest ranking institution (or individual) are in charge of executive decisions. The role of the COOP developer is to provide information to those with the highest credentials and domain. Depending on the crisis, the federal government through FEMA may coordinate the response. For smaller events, the local authorities in collaboration with school administrators (ie: Chancellors, Vice Chancellors, Deans, Directors) will determine roles and resource allocations. Upper administrators have an executive role, so they need to be ready with options to execute plans.
• Keep it simple stupid: COOPs, business continuation plans tend to be lengthy, wordy and hard to follow, so it is important that the content be precise, concise and easily digestible for various levels of employees. You cannot make the assumption that the experts and process keepers will be available to recover your operation. COOP should kept in paper form and in multiple locations.
• Identification of essential services. It is important that COOP planners determine the priority for essential services. Essential services are those that in their absence would make recovery impossible. Think of heat in the middle of the winter or water in the middle of the summer.
• Identification of risk levels for high probability events that have happened around your campus and measure your ability to respond to the situation under current or diminished resource levels Housing departments have many moving parts and limited resources, so it is important that housing officers create a risk assessment based on prior experiences. Applying lessons learned from regional sister institutions is also a viable strategy.
• Measure your levels and threshold of preparedness: the development of a risk/scenario matrix for events and situations will determine what your highest priorities should be and where your resources should go. (here is an example to get you an idea of what the model could look like)

Methodology: 
Determine a probability score (high, medium, low), create a tolerance level for specific situation (ie: fires, hurricanes, accidents, pandemic, active shooter, power outages, flooding), a tolerance level determines your ability to sustain/recover your services given a tolerance level priority. Losing power for a day in the summer is not the same (in tolerance) as losing power for a day in the middle of the winter.
 
Your tolerance diminishes as conditions change. Think of the tragic events at the superdome event during Katrina. The longer it takes to recover, the more dramatic things will become.
 

• Determine human impact, property impact, business impact. Give it a score using a simple ranking ie: critical, vital and sensitive.
  Determine the role (weak, medium, strong) of your department on addressing the event. Your role in a major regional catastrophe will be different than a building level event. Once you set up various scenarios, you can use the composite score to identify your highest risk and your highest probability situations.
   
• The basics factors will always get you: As COOPs are written, there is a great deal of planning that goes on at complex levels of emergency planning. Nevertheless, focus on the basic elements of life/business/safety preservation that will have the most impact on your plan. As an example: you cannot create technology heavy communication or student tracking solution when the event impacting your campuses wipes your data center, cellular communication, electricity, water, communication gateways, etc. So create a plan from the ground up and move to more detail as your COOP plan (scenarios) grow. Stick to basic solutions for complex problems. A database driven housing management system is no match for a paper based list (or lists) during a power impairing catastrophe. Your plan should address the absence or scarcity of major elements of civilization like: food, water, electricity, sewer services, cellular, road infrastructure, law enforcement, etc.
   
• Plan for Redundancy of Roles: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs should be considered when making assumptions about employees and their role on COOP. Personnel will rise and fall based on their ability to handle their own hierarchy of needs. COOP planning addresses roles and functions with primary and secondary respondents. Your top performers under normal conditions may be your least reliable under stress.
  Information technology should be a priority: engage IT administrators (within and outside) when dealing with scenarios and assumptions. Do not assume that enterprise technology services are interchangeable, or easily recoverable/replaceable. As technical people are not interchangeable in skills, you have to maintain awareness of the assumptions non-technical people make about technology capabilities. As technology is consumerized, enterprise level services are often assumed as easily replaceable or interchangeable with “walmart” versions of such service or hardware. The use of cloud computing is becoming more prevalent for back up and off site communication mechanisms.
   
• Identify assumptions: It is impossible to plan for every scenario, so assumptions have to be spelled out for those involved on the recovery and reconstitution planning. The delivery of a strategy or tactic needs to include the assumption of resources prior to the execution of such plan.
   
• Stockpile essentials: do not assume that “other” entities will provide resources free of charge. Scarcity and speculation become part of the conversation during regional events. Work closely with food services for making sure “dry goods” or “foods that can be consumed without the need of heat or cold” are available for those that choose to remain on campus. flashlights, radios, kits, granola bars (dry food), glow sticks, generators, etc should be part of your inventory.
   

Fiscal Issues: 
Pandemics events create very specific challenges for the organization that require long term budgetary and personnel training. Pandemics are a game of percentages and thresholds. Your operation depends on your ability to provide housing services. As pandemic crisis limits your ability to house students, your fiscal viability will be a serious factor to consideration. It may be wise to do a budget analysis identifying your threshold of pain. Pandemic scenarios can create situations where 40 or 50% of your service capacity is completely wiped out.

The template that we used at our school came from FEMA:


http://www.ready.gov/

and

http://www.fema.gov/planning-templates


Other resources:

http://www.acuho-i.org/Portals/0/pdf/Campus_Housing_Guidelines_for_Pandemic_Planning.pdf

6 months later: Lessons learned of applied IT leadership

Introduction

This document is a compilation of ideas presented during the Third Session of the Third Cohort of MOR's IT leadership program at UW Oshkosh on January 2013. The ideas presented here are an eclectic yet structured effort to process, shared knowledge and engage others through this program. I don't have riches to give, so my wisdom will suffice.

First Session: Presence and presentation, definition of leadership and management, leadership journey, balancing the important with the immediate, delegation, creating and individual development plan, coaching for commitment, etc.

• My perception: I was disappointed about the outcome of a hiring process, but the coaches confronted me in a positive manner. At the end of the second session, the senior IT coach shared his leadership Journey. As he explained the big challenges of his life, I began to realize the leadership journey has many ups and downs. The paradigm shift for me was to realize that I will not be remembered only by my successes, but how I handled/overcame failures. 

Second Session:
Introduction to Strategic Thinking, Building Relationships, Creating a Vision, Neuroscience and creating new pathways, Coaching for Results.

• My perception: the currency of the University are relationships and trust. Conflict strikes because relationships are not established. (After all, who has time for relationships when technical tasks have to be completed). Make it your job to establish professional relationships with people outside your immediate circle of influence. Seek to understand when confronted with “impossible” requests.  Help establish a shared vision by sharing what you know at the right time and the right place.
  
  CIOs are at the end game of their technical capability because their role is strategic and political in nature, nevertheless keep them informed of your progress and how that progress is aligned to the University. Data is an important element of strategic planning.  I have heard my boss say: "I believe in God, everyone else bring data to the meetings..."

Third Session: Leading Change and Delivering Results
Leading change, understanding workplace culture, the leaders role in delivering, the three lenses: strategic, political and cultural, developing measures in IT.

• My experience: The one quote I remember is that “culture eats strategy for breakfast”. The 6 hour drive to UW superior helped our group (UW Oshkosh cohort) connect at levels we didn’t expect. Perceptions about teams and attitudes started to change. It was no longer “Us vs Them”; we were now one team. This session triggered my interest on pursuing knowledge in the area of assessment and service metrics. 

Fourth Session:
Interpersonal skills, emotional intelligence, exercising influence, organizational and political savvy, the leaders’ role as a communicator, leadership as a performance art, coaching for breakthrough.

• My experience: I began to understand why some of my fraternity brothers were more successful than others despite academic achievement. Some of the most successful members of my fraternity had advanced interpersonal skills. 
  
  Leadership is putting yourself outside of your comfort zone. Working on what you communicate with non-verbals is a huge factor for how people see you. On so many ocassions I have heard people say about coworkers: "He/she is not good with people, but he/she is good a fixing computers..."
  
  For every action, there is a reaction of equal proportion and strength. It is important we understand how the “proven” tactics used to fix computers may not fix relationships or people.
  
  During the session, we tested our ability to navigate the implementation process from the standpoint of people, politics and influence.  Through my tactics/experience I won the simulation, giving me the realization of my skills and abilities: strategy and influence. 

Fifth Session:
Developing people, having difficult conversations, leadership and ethics, continuing your leadership journey, taking care of yourself, graduation.

• My experience: I was able to demonstrate that my IT leadership training had made me a better manager, leader, father and human being. 

What have I done since our MOR's IT leaders graduation in June of 2012

• I was asked to serve in MHEC (midwestern higher education compact) virtualization contract process getting me in the areas of bid writing and contract negotiation. 
• I became the departmental expert on assessment and student retention inclusive of Map Works™ and EBI housing survey mechanisms. 
• Made sure my department was accountable for our service deliverables which included the migration to our new data center, the procurement of all the necessary elements for our virtualization effort, the completion of the rewrite for the one and only student portal, a new social media and marketing strategy and the overall planning and execution for our department’s budget process inclusive of a 10 year capital plan, 6 year bond schedule,  revenue model  and occupancy forecast. 
• I continue to engage other campus IT leaders (and administrators) as the conversations related to “reinventing IT” continue to come up. 
• I received the Chancellor’s Outstanding Service Award in the Fall 2012. 

Other Useful Learning Topics

Become Self Aware (of weaknesses and strengths) then move to Self Management. Self awareness is an important part of your evolution as a IT leaders... Knowing your weaknesses and strengths. Self Management is doing something with the information provided by your self-awareness... If you have known weaknesses, what actions can you take to make yourself a better person.

The Four Leadership competencies are:

1. Management of Meaning: your goal as a leader is to identify the purpose and value of what you do and what others do within your domain. It is important that you question the motivators within your organization. What is the meaning of life? Is it 42? Or is it something beyond money and power? Purpose and value take the form of giving back to you and to others.  Is the pursuit of happiness the most important meaning of life?
2. Management of Attention: our daily life has a bunch of priorities and distractions. It is important that you identify what are the top priorities and what can wait or be delegated. As electronic communications become part of our daily life, what we do in the presence of others is important. As we choose to engage our iphones or ipads instead of our co-workers, we need to be mindful of our physical presence during meetings and conversations with coworkers. The “you right here, right now” is far more impactful than the “you on your phone while people try to grab your attention”.
3. Management of Self: This is not a new idea. As kids we are told to control our emotions and behavior for positive rewards. The pavlov effect that this creates can create bad behaviors of expecations for you and for those that work with you. The idea goes beyond that as we grow older and realize that our success at home and at work depend on our ability to engage our emotions and attitudes in a productive manner. Telling people off may be incredibly gratifying experience in the short run, but it doesn’t provide long term solutions to conflict and relationships.
4. Management of Trust: this is defined by the idea that you need to trust your skills and capabilities and the capabilities of others. Moving from micromanaging to a strategic leader takes the form that requires that you trust people and their capabilities. 

Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering™

Fear can drive you to make wrong decision: Avoid using the reactive mind to engage conflict at work and at home. Your path to happiness and leadership include the possibilities for tough decisions and/or engagement with difficult situations and people.

Learn to deal with conflict:
Don’t avoid it, don't pursuit it; deal with it. Engage the issues from a logical unemotional point... Extract the emotion and the personal bias when dealing with conflict. Know when to speak and when to be quite (pick your battles).

Learn to deal with people you dislike, detest, hate, disrespect:
There is always someone that will challenge your opinion and perception of value. That may not want to play by your rules and expectation. They are you best opportunity and challenge. Identify why you dislike the person... Identify your personal bias. Engage and seek to understand before judging.

Identify opportunities in the raw
Opportunities never come in nice folders or in gold plated lettering. Opportunities are little dirty things that people pick up from the floor. Be capable of creating your own future by identifying opportunities where no one else sees them.

Diversify your experience
Always find opportunities to help others to learn from your experience... Experience is a tough teacher that gives tests before the lessons are provided. Experience comes in the form of training, certifications, teaching, mentorship with less senior people in your organization.

Develop routines of success
A routine of success is one that helps you identify corrective measures through action planning. Action planning is the process of setting metrics and timelines for accomplishments. As you identify bad habits; new routines can create new pathways of behavior. It is difficult to change old bad habits, however the brain is more capable of creating new pathways for new habits. Those new habits set the tone for who you need to be.

Branding of self
People in IT often say that they got into IT because they liked to fix things or because they didn't know what they wanted to do in life and somehow they ended in positions dealing with information technology and project management. People often become comfortable on how they ended in their roles without putting much thought to career path or professional development for the next job.


The techie paradox:
I am a techie, I don't need to work on my people skills, my expertise drive this boat. The technical mind tends to gravitate to logical solutions to problems. Emotions and attitudes tend to be driven by incorrect self perceptions. It is important that we challenge ourselves with rookie opportunities to public speak or reach out to people in a positive manner. Engaging conflict in a positive manner is what drives your ability to influence others and solve non computer related problems. Often people find themselves in a gap between who they are and who they want to be. Coworkers, supervisors and peers associate you with a very specific set of skills and talents that define your brand (or ethos). If your brand is an organizational match, leadership opportunities and engagement will arise, but if your brand is “different”, this may limit you. Be aware of how you present your brand to others. Once you are branded with negative characteristics or behaviors, your brand will be difficult to change.

Do not let others define who you are or what your current and future capabilities are (will be)...  “You define yourself”.

Keep your MORs leadership binder (IT leadership manual) near your daily activity and use the content every once in awhile (sharpen the saw as Covey advises).  It is important that you apply the concepts presented during training sessions for the improvement of your organization. Revisit the ideas often. Create a calendar entry reminding you to set time aside for you and your thoughts. It is important that you create new ideas with the information provided through any leadership program.

How did I apply what I learned at the ITLP

1. Presence: Confidence, Relationship Building, Communication and Strategic Engagement. Personal retooling through 360 feedback and coaching process.
2. Emotional intelligence: Worked towards evolving my understanding of issues related to self awareness while moving towards self regulation. Expanding my understanding and activation of emotional intelligence and neuroscience theory.
3. From tactical to strategic. Leading from the balcony, focusing my energy on strategic ideas for our department and the University.
4. Empowerment and delegation: Elevated the status and role of my subordinates by empowering them to take necessary steps towards self improvement and accountability. Rewrote job descriptions, realigned responsibilities, stepped out of tactical issues, etc. 
5. Realignment of professional priorities to support the University’s overall mission including student recruitment and retention. Examples: ALMA, Mapworks, EBI Benchmarking, Social Media Workflows, etc 

Applying the three lenses: strategic, political and cultural

1. Promoted interactions with Central IT that fostered collaboration on common goals. Examples of this include participating and allowing participation of my subordinates on the Google Apps implementation, Intranet Advisory Committee, Lean and Security Compliance work-groups, etc.

Final words of wisdom for other IT leaders in progress.

1. Take advantage of this opportunity and enjoy the moment. The opportunities for friendship and connections with other IT/business people are invaluable. 
2. Keep that binder close to you and share the information within with coworkers and those around you looking to self improve and grow. 
3. Make sure you set up a covenant with your cohorts and those going through this program that you will maintain contact and that you will make an effort to hold you accountable for self improvement, learning new things and shared with others the lessons learned during your ongoing leadership journey. 

The payload of the MORs IT leadership program is NOT:

1. A membership to a really cool secret society of computer geeks
2. A guarantee that your training will deliver a new title or a better job. 
3. A check mark on your performance appraisal or resume. 

The payload of the MORs IT leadership program is very simple: the empowerment to be the best leader (human being) you can be regardless of title, position or wage.

(graduation story: read below)

Final Story: The native american tale of the two wolves living inside of us.