The current weather problems are not a spike (1-2 days) but prolonged. Therefore it has exposed companies who are not ‘process mature’ . But this problem applies to a number of business disruptions – power cuts, postal strikes, airline delays, data centre failure. A quick spike and you can muddle through with staff heroics - Heroics is the Process Maturity Curve (below). But those heroics cannot be sustained for long. More mature organisations are at Defined or beyond in terms of maturity. When there is a problem they simply switch into a pre-defined ‘alternative working’ mode. Example is Nimbus. We switched to “staff can’t get in” mode; support desk remote working, telephone rerouting, rules on use of VPN, etc etc. We also have a “network connectivity / no power to office “ mode – an issue when you have a stately home in the middle of 2,000 acres of woods. So – “What are your alternative modes of working and are they defined? Can you switch to them without fuss, and then switch back without leaving data orphaned/lost?’ Shell called this scenario planning. But it takes thought. And sometimes doing is easier than thinking.