This document discusses enabling business continuity when employees are unavailable by focusing on adaptive capacity. It recommends decentralizing platforms, communication, and knowledge through approaches like cloud-native engineering, modern communication tools, and runbook automation. Runbook automation involves capturing expert knowledge in automated runbooks to standardize responses and allow anyone to handle incidents. The document advocates testing capabilities regularly through everyday operations to prepare for disruptions and becoming a learning organization that treats incidents as opportunities. The goal is to move beyond legacy business continuity strategies that may be undermined by increasing complexity and change.

1. Business
Continuity for
Humans
Keeping your business running when
your people are unavailable
Damon Edwards

2. You
Before February 2020

3. You
“Business Continuity”
“Resiliency”
“Disaster Recovery”
Before February 2020

4. Legacy Business
Continuity Focus

5. Legacy Business
Continuity Focus

6. Legacy Business
Continuity Focus

7. What happens when
your people are
disrupted?
March 2020

8. What happens when
your people are
disrupted?

9. Add Redundancy

10. Add Redundancy
Where? How?

11. Our World is
Complex
Source: Cornell.edu

12. Our World is
Complex
Source: Cornell.edu

13. Our World is
Complex
Source: Cornell.edu

14. Our World is
Complex
Source: Cornell.edu

15. Increasing
Complexity and
Scale Drives
Specialization

16. What’s a Critical
Function?

17. What’s a Critical
Function?
Wouldn’t think the refund system was the
most important until…

18. What’s a Critical
Function?
Daily bookings drop to hundreds of thousands ($)
Daily refunds spike to tens of millions ($)
Wouldn’t think the refund system was the
most important until…

19. What’s a Critical
Function?

20. What’s a Critical
Function?
Wouldn’t think launching a microsite and
webform was the most important system until…

21. What’s a Critical
Function?
Millions of small businesses were counting on it
being ready in days.
Wouldn’t think launching a microsite and
webform was the most important system until…

22. What’s a Critical
Function?

23. What’s a Critical
Function?
Wouldn’t think WFH capabilities (previously
forbidden) were the most important until…

24. What’s a Critical
Function?
35% of your Dev, QA, and Ops staff is locked
out of the office with less than 1-day notice.
Wouldn’t think WFH capabilities (previously
forbidden) were the most important until…

25. "Adaptive Capacity relates to the capacity
of systems, institutions, humans… to adjust to
potential damage, to take advantage of
opportunities, or to respond to consequences.”

26. "Adaptive Capacity relates to the capacity
of systems, institutions, humans… to adjust to
potential damage, to take advantage of
opportunities, or to respond to consequences.”
Science
Biology
Ecology
Sociology
Safety
Business
Mangement
IT

27. Enabling
Adaptive
Capacity
1. Decentralized Platforms
2. Decentralized Communication
3. Decentralized Knowledge

28. Enabling
Adaptive
Capacity
1. Decentralized Platforms
2. Decentralized Communication
3. Decentralized Knowledge

29. The Search for
Decentralized
Platforms
Start

30. The Search for
Decentralized
Platforms
Start
PaaS

31. The Search for
Decentralized
Platforms
Start
PaaS

32. The Search for
Decentralized
Platforms
Start
PaaS VMs

33. The Search for
Decentralized
Platforms
Start
PaaS VMs

34. The Search for
Decentralized
Platforms
Start
PaaS VMs
IaaS

35. The Search for
Decentralized
Platforms
Start
PaaS VMs
IaaS

36. The Search for
Decentralized
Platforms
Start
PaaS VMs
IaaS
Containers

37. The Search for
Decentralized
Platforms
Start
PaaS VMs
IaaS
Containers

38. The Search for
Decentralized
Platforms
Start
PaaS VMs
IaaS
Containers
Cloud
Native

39. The Search for
Decentralized
Platforms
Start
PaaS VMs
IaaS
Containers
Cloud
Native

40. The Search for
Decentralized
Platforms
Start
PaaS VMs
IaaS
Containers
Cloud
Native Platform
Engineering
SRE
+
DevOps

41. The Search for
Decentralized
Platforms
Start
PaaS VMs
IaaS
Containers
Cloud
Native Platform
Engineering
SRE
+
DevOps
Note: Yes, these are all still very useful technologies. Don’t @ me.

42. Enabling
Adaptive
Capacity
1. Decentralized Platforms
2. Decentralized Communication
3. Decentralized Knowledge

43. Decentralized
Communication

44. Decentralized
Communication
~100 years

45. Decentralized
Communication
~100 years
~20 years

46. Decentralized
Communication
~100 years
~20 years
~5 years

47. Decentralized
Communication
Channel usage rules?
Expectations and SLAs?
Structure and discoverability?
~100 years
~20 years
~5 years

48. Enabling
Adaptive
Capacity
1. Decentralized Platforms
2. Decentralized Communication
3. Decentralized Knowledge

49. Knowledge
Resides in
Specialist Silos

50. Sprawl of Tools
Help us Cope

51. Problem:
Still Need
Subject Matter
Experts
to Operate

52. Problem:
Still Need
Subject Matter
Experts
to Operate

53. Runbook
Automation
Capture and Share
Expert Knowledge as
Automated Runbooks

54. Enabling
Adaptive
Capacity
1. Decentralized Platforms
2. Decentralized Communication
3. Decentralized Knowledge

55. Don’t get fixated
on the “big one”

56. Don’t get fixated
on the “big one”
Everyday
Ops
Disaster
Recovery
Don’t do this!

57. “If we aren’t constantly testing our ability to
succeed despite failure, then it isn’t likely to
work when it matters most.”

58. “If we aren’t constantly testing our ability to
succeed despite failure, then it isn’t likely to
work when it matters most.”

60. Test By Using
Everyday
1. Decentralized Platforms
2. Decentralized Communication
3. Decentralized Knowledge

61. Test By Using
Everyday
1. Decentralized Platforms
2. Decentralized Communication
3. Decentralized Knowledge

62. Test By Using
Everyday
1. Decentralized Platforms
2. Decentralized Communication
3. Decentralized Knowledge

63. Runbook
Automation for
Everyday Use
Incident Management
Shorter incidents.
Fewer escalations.
Anyone can respond.

64. Runbook
Automation for
Everyday Use
Incident Management
Shorter incidents.
Fewer escalations.
Anyone can respond.
WITHOUT RBA

65. Runbook
Automation for
Everyday Use
Incident Management
Shorter incidents.
Fewer escalations.
Anyone can respond.
WITHOUT RBA
WITH RBA

66. Runbook as a Service
Blending Auto-Remediation with Rapid Human Response
Bhavik Gudka Surya Avirneni
DevOps Enterprise Summit 2019 - Las Vegas

67. Runbook
Automation for
Everyday Use
Service Requests
Faster turnaround times.
Fewer interuptions.

68. Runbook
Automation for
Everyday Use
Service Requests
Faster turnaround times.
Fewer interuptions.
WITHOUT RBA

69. Runbook
Automation for
Everyday Use
Service Requests
Faster turnaround times.
Fewer interuptions.
WITHOUT RBA
WITH RBA

70. 1. Decentralized Platforms
2. Decentralized Communication
3. Decentralized Knowledge
Enabling
Adaptive
Capacity

71. 1. Decentralized Platforms
2. Decentralized Communication
3. Decentralized Knowledge
Enabling
Adaptive
Capacity
But wait,
There’s more…
4. Become a Learning Organization

72. Become a Learning Organization
Build an empowered a just culture from the bottom upwards
Adaptive Capacity Labs

73. Become a Learning Organization
Build an empowered a just culture from the bottom upwards
Incidents = unplanned investments …the ROI is up to you.
Adaptive Capacity Labs

74. Recap!
1. Decentralized
Platforms
2. Decentralized
Communication
3. Decentralized
Knowledge
1. Decentralized
Platforms
2. Decentralized
Communication
3. Decentralized
Knowledge
4. Become a Learning
Organization
See beyond the legacy
view of Business Continuity
What happens when your
people are disrupted?
Complexity and pace of change
undermine legacy strategies
Enable Adaptive Capacity
Runbook Automation for everyday
operations and disaster operations

75. @damonedwards
damon@rundeck.com
Let’s talk…
rundeck.com/techstrong