Rapid Training for Managing Continuity of Operations

Every organization faces risk of unfamiliar crisis whether it is natural, technological or man made. While one cannot predict an emergency one can be ready with a predictable response to it. Preparing to respond to an unfamiliar crisis requires careful preplanning at multiple levels. Preparing to communicate and train is one of them. 

Crisis or emergency situation typically involves significant changes to the normal way of working. Teleworking, use of alternative systems, changes in process workflows etc. are made to ensure continuity of operations. Inorder for these changes to be effective they need to communicated and staff needs to be trained appropriately. It is imperative to have tools available for creating such communication and trainings rapidly. 

While equipping your organization with rapid training tools it is recommended that you consider the following paramenters.

Rapid Creation

During emergency situations the need is to dramatically shorten the time it takes to create training content. One needs to be prepared for creating content in a matter of hours instead of days and weeks while maintaining the instructional and informational value. Ability to reuse and work with existing content and standard tools like Microsoft PowerPoint is a big advantage while creating content rapidly.

Universal Access

The entry barriers for accessing the content should be minimal. Platform dependency, tools and large runtimes required to access content and authentication/firewall issues are the common entry barriers to avoid for training content.

Easy Update

It should be easy to update the content on a continuous basis. Updation should not require special skills or complex programming which can lock the content updation to a specified set of people. 

Multimedia incorporation

It is often faster and more effective to include multimedia demonstrations rather than creating text based trainings. Multimedia is specially suited for procedural trainings and software/IT system trainings. Use of trainer/presenter video can also add the much needed personal touch ?in important communications (Eg: CEO address) during crisis situations. The tools should make it easy to create demonstrations and incorporate video in multiple formats.

Live as well as on demand delivery

Finally it is important to plan for the ability to deliver content live as well as make them available for on demand consumption. One should make arrangements for supporting the expected scalibilty requirements for simultaneously delivery to large audience like incase of townhall meetings.

Being prepared for communicating and training effectively can significantly shorten the recovery time from a crisis and help in protecting revenue by keeping the lights on.

More Information

Telework and continuity of operations whitepaper.

Continuity of operations considerations have advanced the telework initiatives, this whitepaper explores how Adobe's solutions enable a telework environment.

Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro

Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro web conferencing solution helps in securely sharing presentations and multimedia right from your desktop, and get feedback from hundreds of participants — all using a web browser and the Adobe Flash® Player runtime, already installed on over 98% of Internet-connected personal computers.
 

Adobe Captivate

With Adobe® Captivate software, you can rapidly author professional eLearning content with advanced interactivity, software and scenario simulations, quizzes, and other engaging experiences.

Adobe Presenter

Adobe Presenter enables rapid creation of high-impact Adobe Flash presentations and eLearning courses from PowerPoint