The Bunker vs. The Bank Transfer: Why We Over-Plan for Preparedness and Under-Plan for Delivery
The Trap of “Strategic” Anxiety
We have all sat in those meetings. The air is thick with “strategic” buzzwords. We spend hours debating complex scenario planning, drafting philosophical preambles for Preparedness Plans, and agonizing over the “What ifs.”
The Unsexy Truth of Business Continuity
While we obsess over the Preparedness Plan (the “Shield”), we frequently neglect the Business Continuity Plan (the “Engine”).
Why? I guess that many people in our industry feels more comfortable in that abstract realm.
Business continuity require more grounded insights. It is also kind of boring.
- Redundant server backups.
- Delegation of financial authority when the Country Director is offline.
- Supply chain failovers when the primary vendor’s warehouse is inaccessible.
In the humanitarian sector, we treat these as IT or Admin problems, distinct from the “real work” of operations. This is a fatal error.
The “Survival but Failure” Paradox
Here is the hard reality: An organization can successfully survive a crisis while simultaneously failing its mission.
If your Preparedness Plan works perfectly:
- You figured out what was going to happen (kind of).
- You may have a seat at the national response cell.
And now what? If,
- You cannot authorize the payment for the water trucking company.
- You cannot access the beneficiary database to verify the distribution list.
- You cannot report to the donor why the program is delayed, leading to a funding freeze.
In this scenario, you have achieved organizational survival, but operational failure. You are safe, but you are useless.
Continuity Is the Strategy
These plans are not just complementary, but I would argue they are sequential dependencies.
“There’s no point in identifying risks and preparing if you won’t be able to deliver.”
Conclusion
There are good resources for Business Continuity Planning in the humanitarian sector already exists.
https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/WHO-WHE-CPI-2018.60
https://share.google/5s0JKRKFXw0NnmueD
Now you need the right people to bring them to life.