21-Sep-05 3:00 PM CST

New Standards May Help Professional Services Firms Prepare for Disaster

As Hurricane Rita threatens the Texas Coast and with the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina still fresh in the minds of many partners at law firms and other professional services firms, there is a disappointing lack of coordination to help shape standards to guide future preparedness efforts.

Not so in other industries. For instance, more than a dozen major financial services firms and leading vendors announced this week they are devising disaster recovery and business continuity standards to help companies gauge their preparedness for future disasters.

As reported in ComputerWorld, the Financial Services Technology Consortium (FSTC) is spearheading the effort to create the Resiliency Maturity Model Project. It will, for the first time, create benchmarks and define terms for business continuity planning across all areas of a financial enterprise.

Will such a model have utility for law firms and other professional services firms? Only time will tell, but Charles M. Wallen, managing executive of FSTC’s Business Continuity Standing Committee and the project’s director suggests that he expects companies in other industries to benefit.

In the ComputerWorld story, Wallen is quoted as saying, “Katrina is one of many large-scale events that reaffirm the need to have strong business continuity plans and to provide a road map for third-party providers to understand what’s needed. We have to do a better job at raising the bar.”

The FSTC expects to complete the project by spring 2006.

In June 2005, FSTC completed work on its Business Continuity Compliance Project, which pulled together more than 100 global continuity regulations into a single set of terms and definitions.

At Rafte & Company, we fully endorse the goal of coming up with this common language and capabilities. We also support thinking more broadly than simply disaster preparedness and business continuity. Defining standards for critical business processes, such as information security, change control and governance are areas that deserve careful consideration.

But even if standards are developed and embraced by law firms and other professional services firms, that alone won’t be enough to avert devastation. Policies and procedures aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on if they aren’t tested and updated periodically. Moreover, if the firm fails to provide the necessary financial resources, the message throughout the firm is clear: it’s not a priority.

Nonetheless, let’s hope that the Resiliency Maturity Model Project is a success. As reported in ComputerWorld:

(It) is being carried out in two phases, the first of which is expected to be completed this month and will identify a list of capabilities that answer questions such as: “What sort of things do I need to be good at in order to achieve my resiliency goals?” The FSTC is working with Carnegie Mellon to use some of its methodologies in maturity modeling to identify the levels and capabilities within reach of most organizations.

The second phase of the project is expected to be completed next spring and will include benchmarks and maturity models to which companies can compare their preparedness against some 40 capabilities.

For information on disaster preparedness, business continuity and disaster recovery services for your firm, contact Rafte & Company at 713-993-9637 or e-mail drafte@rafte.com.

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