Your IT systems will almost certainly fail. Are you ready?

Organizations are working overtime to secure IT systems. While ignoring the fact that IT systems will, almost certainly, eventually fail in some way.

Everything can -and eventually will be- hacked. Power will go out. Your infrastructure staff will configure a router incorrectly. Someone will spill coffee on the console. The causes are myriad but the outcome is certain: Your IT systems will fail.

Being adaptable to change means looking at the system, identifying weak points, and changing your approach. For decades IT folks have been convinced they can prevent the inevitable failure. Despite ample evidence to the contrary, their planning is based on the assumption that IT failures can be prevented. Strategies based on this flawed assumption are flawed.

Designers, business analysts, operations folks, and developers have to start looking at their technology ecosystem and ask: If the system I am building goes down, how can my organization continue to fill orders, manage inventory, see patients, and take payments?

Designing parallel offline/non-digital operations models is a critical yet often overlooked part of disaster recovery. The unfortunate reality is your modern digital organization may be dependent on pencil and paper after an attack. You have to design that ability before you need it.

So how do you shift gears and design for analog operations in a digital-first world?

The first step is to identify the critical workflows that your organization absolutely must be able to conduct. In the event of a massive failure you won't be able to do everything, so do the things that count.

Next, create an as-is service blueprint for those critical workflows detailing the customer actions, the front and back stage touchpoints that support those actions, and the supporting systems/processes that enable the workflow.

Next, identify the points in the workflow that will fail in the event of a ransomware attack or other major IT failure.

Finally, build a new crisis service blueprint that includes work arounds and alternatives for each failure point.

This is a collaborative process and should be conducted with representatives from across the organization. Don't assume your designers and operations execs know what it is like to ship product. Get the shipping and receiving folks in the room. You should also include customers and/or conduct research with them in conjunction with your service blueprinting activities.