Your Proposal:
Emergency Management and Business Continuity Program

At Fixinc, we understand the importance of a solid foundation for every program we initiate. That's why we prioritise Engagement Meetings, facilitated by our experienced Program Manager. The meetings are a crucial first step to ensure alignment and set clear expectations for all parties involved.

Meeting Details

Facilitation:

Your Program Manager will lead the Engagement phase, ensuring a structured and productive phase. The meetings can be conducted virtually via Teams, Zoom, or Google Meets. In-person meetings can be arranged if preferred and feasible.

Attendees:

The meeting should be attended by yourself and any key program sponsors. These are individuals who will be significantly involved in the program's roll-out and success and colleagues you expect us to have a high degree of interaction with. In some scenarios, clients invite a member of an executive team should it be valuable to ensure this person is confident in the implementation plan (a great way to get initial buy-in).

Duration:

The Engagement Meetings typically lasts one hour and can be run over a serires of weeks, providing ample time to cover all essential topics.

The Agenda will include:

1) Introduction:

• Welcome and introductions
• Overview of Fixinc and the program's purpose

2) Discussion Points:

• Scope of Work: A detailed discussion on the scope of the program to ensure clarity and mutual understanding.
• Priorities and Responsibilities: Identifying and assigning key priorities and responsibilities to ensure a smooth workflow.
• Approximate Timescales: Reviewing the tentative timeline for program milestones and deliverables.
• Client Portal Review: A walk-through of the Client Portal, highlighting its features and how it will be used for program management and communication as well as setting up your accounts.
• Program Outcomes and Objectives: Confirming the desired outcomes and objectives to ensure alignment with the client's vision.
• Next Steps: Outlining the immediate next steps following the meeting to maintain momentum.

3) Q&A Session:

• Dedicated time for questions and answers to address any concerns or uncertainties.

Logistics

Timing:

The Engagement Meeting is scheduled at your convenience  after the proposal. This prompt scheduling helps maintain momentum and ensures a timely start to the program.

Rescheduling:

We understand that schedules can change. Therefore, there are opportunities to reschedule if necessary, ensuring all key participants can attend.

Follow-Up:

Minutes from the meeting will be meticulously documented and shared via the Client's Portal. Additionally, the call will be recorded using the chosen meeting software for future reference, all found via the Implementation section of your Client Portal.

Conclusion

The Engagement phase is designed to establish a strong foundation for the program, ensuring all parties are aligned and ready to proceed. With clear communication, defined objectives, and a dedicated time for questions, we aim to set the stage for a successful collaboration.

A clear understanding of your key priorities and dependencies are essential to build effective business continuity strategies.  To achieve this, Fixinc will develop a Business Impact Analysis (BIA) through the facilitation of consultative interviews with business unit representatives.

For each area of the business that undertakes the BIA, outcomes of the BIA process will include confirmation of:

• All mission-critical functions
• Allowable outages and recovery timeframes for each critical function
• Resource requirements and critical dependencies

As part of the BIA process, Fixinc will also facilitate a threat assessment using our proprietary threat forecasting tools to assess relevant business continuity vulnerabilities and plausible disruption scenarios that may impact critical business functions, as identified in the BIAs. This will include:

• Prioritise the organisation’s products and services by determining the MTPD for each.
• Prioritise the process or processes required to deliver the organization’s most urgent products and services, including identification of the activities that make up those processes, if required.
• Prioritise the activities that deliver the most urgent products and services, and determine the resources required for the continuity of these activities following an incident, as well as their interdependencies.
• Perform a final analysis or consolidation of analyses which should lead to the determination of business continuity requirements.
• Identification and categorisation of disruption related threats.
• Review of likely causes, existing controls and potential impacts.
• Prioritisation of all identified risks based on likelihood and impact ratings.
• Grouping and prioritisation of risks into key disruption scenarios.

The business continuity plans will include simple and easy-to-use documentation in the form of action plans covering business recovery and resumption considerations for all relevant disruption scenarios. Plans will also closely align with existing crisis management, emergency management, risk management, IT and operational measures to ensure an integrated outcome.

‍This will deliver a standardised and integrated protocol for dealing with business disruptions and will include:

• Establishment of required command and control structures, including management roles and responsibilities.
• Communication strategies and supporting templates.
• Incident Assessment tools to measure the severity of an event.
• Impact assessment tools to measure the scale and nature of damage to business operations.
• Practical checklists for immediate operational tasks and escalation procedures to aid with decisions.
• Staff management plans to assist with relocations and recovery of work priorities.
• Resource management plans to effectively coordinate recovery efforts.
• Identification of alternate accommodation and process workarounds.
• Recovery strategies in the form of highly practical checklists, supported by reference procedures.
• Resumption strategies to resume business as usual operations.
• Other supporting tools, documents, and reference materials.

Business Continuity Training

Suitable for staff with overall business continuity management responsibilities. The 4-hour modular Leadership Program is an industry first management course specifically designed to build awareness, critical skills, and incident leadership capabilities of your team using the latest experiential learning techniques and real-world case studies. Fixinc’s Learning and Development division will organise all pre-training bookings and complete training participant records for all sessions.

The session will deliver the following key outputs:

• Understand the current threat Environment:
• World Economic Forum Report 
• Focused Risks
• Risk Activity

Identify Incident Management Principles:

• Incident Response Diamond 
• What is an Incident
• Phases of an Incident
• Incident assessment activity

Develop Situational Awareness:

• Collecting Information
• Assessing Information
• Acting on Information
• Situational Awareness Activity

Demonstrate use of the UTS Business Continuity Plan:

• Assessing Incident Severity
• Active Resources
• Implement Immediate Actions
• Assess University Impacts
• Recovery Critical Business Functions
• Activate Business Continuity Plan Activity

Validation:

The training session will include 5 exercise activities which will challenge the attendees through the following components:

Warmup Activity:

Designed to encourage the attendees to focus, clear their mind, and shift their attention to the training session. This mental preparation is crucial for concentration, coordination, and overall performance.

Risk Activity:

Attendees can identify specific threats and vulnerabilities that the organization may face, including physical, cyber, internal, and external threats. This provides a clearer picture of the current threat landscape and helps prioritise areas needing attention.

Incident Assessment Activity:

Incident assessment provides insights into how well the organisation's incident response protocols have worked in the past. It can reveal the strengths and weaknesses of the current response strategies. This understanding allows for improvements in response plans, training, and resource allocation, ensuring that future incidents are managed more effectively and efficiently.

Situational Awareness Activity:

These activities often simulate high-stress situations, helping participants practice making quick and informed decisions when faced with a potential threat. Better decision-making under pressure leads to more effective incident responses, minimising the impact of threats and ensuring the safety of employees and assets.

Business Continuity Plan Activity:

Attendees will have the opportunity to use their business continuity plans to simulate a response to a university disruption, ensuring that Critical Business Functions (CBFs) are recovered within the designated Maximum Tolerable Period of Disruption (MTPD).

Testing of Critical Business Functions

Testing verifies that the documented IT recovery procedures are effective and can be executed as planned. This helps identify any gaps or weaknesses in the recovery plan that need to be addressed. By testing recovery processes, the university can ensure that critical IT systems and applications can be restored within acceptable timeframes, minimising downtime and reducing the impact on business operations.

Fixinc’s Learning and Development division will organise all pre-training bookings  and complete training participant records for all sessions.

Media Training Session

Fixinc will provide a 2 hour practical media training session for the Communications Team. Training may consist of the following elements and be suitable for Senior Leaders and media spokespersons:

• Understanding the Media Landscape.
• Message Development.
• Interview Techniques.
• Body Language and Nonverbal Communication.
• Handling Difficult Questions.
• Media Interview Simulation.
• Crisis Communication.
• Media Etiquette and Best Practices.
• Mock Press Conferences.
• Review and Feedback.

Fixinc’s Learning and Development division will organise all pre-training bookings, reminders and notifications for the Museum and complete training participant records for all sessions. 

Exercise Planning

 Validating a Response Plan and Procedures is essential to:

•  Confirm the Recovery procedures are accurate.
• Confirm timeframes regarding the restoration of Critical Business functions and recovery of systems.
• Build familiarisation with staff roles, responsibilities, processes and available tools.
• Identify practical program improvement.
• Provide a high level of stakeholder confidence in the organisations recovery capability.

After the planning meeting, Fixinc will draft an exercise plan for the organisations that outlines all necessary information for the exercise program, including:

• Exercise objectives
• Exercise methodology
• Exercise scope and scale
• Communications
• Roles and responsibilities
• Resource requirements
• Timeframes and timescales
• Internal exercise participants
• Performance criteria

Exercise Plan 

‍Exercise Development

Fixinc will establish and arrange all necessary components for the organisations exercise program, including:

• Selection and development of the preferred exercise scenario.
• Creation of exercise schedules that outline all inputs and interactions during the exercise.
• Involvement of both internal and external participants in the exercise.
• Selection and briefing of exercise volunteers.
• Conducting briefings for participants in the exercise.

Exercise Delivery

Fixinc will design a scenario-based exercise that is event-driven and realistic, maximizing participant involvement and offering a comprehensive yet practical learning opportunity. Fixinc will provide the organisation with dynamic injects that utilize proven exercise resources within a managed exercise setting. 

As the exercise progresses, there will be a strong emphasis on communication impacts, presenting significant challenges for the UTS Communications Team. This will be achieved using the Fixinc Virtual Exercise Environment (VEE), which delivers a series of social media, mainstream media, and video injects. These elements are designed to create a realistic setting for the Emergency Management and Communications Teams.

The selected exercise scenario will ensure that, at the appropriate moment, a business unit or faculty will need to activate its Business Continuity Plan in response to a directive from the Emergency Management Team. This approach allows for the live activation of command and control functions, enabling the validation of the University's response between the strategic level (Emergency Management Team) and the operational level (Business Continuity Team).

On the day of the exercise, Fixinc will have a lead facilitator oversee the program, with support from additional Fixinc staff, in coordination with representatives from the organisation and other relevant parties. The role of Fixinc during the exercise will be to:

• Manage the flow of information and inputs related to the exercise scenario.
• Provide structure and formality to the exercise process, ensuring teams remain focused and on task.
• Monitor and record the efficacy of organization's response and recovery procedures.
• Document all relevant issues as they arise during the exercise.
• Discover any discrepancies or gaps in the organisation's Incident response processes.
• Conduct immediate debriefings with participants in the exercise.

‍Post Exercise Activity

After the conclusion of the exercise program, Fixinc will deliver:

• A full exercise report that details the key activities conducted, evaluations against established criteria, and recognition of crucial shortcomings to be addressed.
• Advice on ways to enhance the program even further.
• Follow-up and implementation assistance as necessary.