{"id":4250217,"date":"2013-10-07T15:45:00","date_gmt":"2013-10-07T15:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.deptagency.com\/insight\/moving-into-business-as-usual-bau\/"},"modified":"2013-10-07T15:45:00","modified_gmt":"2013-10-07T15:45:00","slug":"moving-into-business-as-usual-bau","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/www.deptagency.com\/en-nl\/insight\/moving-into-business-as-usual-bau\/","title":{"rendered":"Moving into business as usual (BAU)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\n\t<\/svg>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\tBack to all articles\t\t<\/span>\n\t\n<\/button>\n\t\tMoving into business as usual (BAU)\t<\/h1>
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\n\t\tBrian Robinson\t\t
\n\t\tManaging Director UK\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t7 October 2013\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\n\n\t\tHow do we move a new client into a Business As Usual \u201cBAU\u201d way of working? (this would apply to an internal team too).\t<\/h2>\n\n\n\t\tWell don\u2019t just jump in and start \u2013 at first it\u2019s gradual. We start with a \u201cfamiliarisation\u201d period where we establish the processes and relationships, formalise roles and responsibilities and so on. We get to know each other and assess the best way of working together. Every organisation is different, so we need to tailor processes so they work for them.

For me, these setup tasks are essential in getting the BAU function off on the right footing. As we begin to get all this information agreed we slowly start doing some BAU tasks to test the processes and make sure everyone is happy with the proposed way of working. From there I guess we just naturally slide into it.\t<\/p>\n\n\n\t\tFlexibility\t<\/h2>\n\n\n\t\tThe purpose of the set-up activities isn\u2019t to define processes and areas of responsibility so you can blame people if something goes wrong or to set a process you stick rigidly to throughout your relationship.

The purpose is to establish a baseline of processes and to be clear about who does what. These will (and should) evolve and change over time to get the best out of everyone.

These processes, roles and responsibilities are essential for setting expectations and to ensure that everyone has the same understanding and will help everyone in the long run.

Things like what are the SLA\u2019s are, when regular reports should be sent, how frequently update calls happen, who the key stakeholders are, what do we do in the event of a severity issue, etc\u2026 If you define these up front, when you come to put them into practice, everyone will feel very confident you\u2019re in control of getting stuff done and ultimately developing the websites.\t<\/p>\n\n\n\t\tDealing with crisis\t<\/h2>\n\n\n\t\tSo how do we handle a crisis and emergencies? Well, the first thing we do is look at how we handled the last crisis and what we decided in our incident review session worked well and what didn\u2019t work as well. As what we absolutely don\u2019t want to do is to make the same decisions this time, that weren\u2019t right last time.

You should already have a base for how to handle a crisis that you have defined during the setup activities; who to contact and how, how frequently your updates will be, your escalation routes, etc and this should be your starting point when entering into a contract.

However, things don\u2019t always work out the way you thought they would, so an understanding that you need to have flexibility is key. An example is if you decided in previous incident review sessions that email wasn\u2019t right as you still got phone calls as the emails went unread then you may decide that a better plan is to have a conference call. It sounds common sense but people can get stuck in the rule book.

This is where constant review of your processes really assists in the day to day activity, encouraging the team to continue with what\u2019s working well and adapting and continuously improving on things that you all decided didn\u2019t work as expected.\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\n\t