Resilience management - readiness and response

Resilience management is an approach that seeks to build and enhance an organization's ability to withstand and adapt to disruptions, whether they be internal or external. The big idea behind resilience management is to create an environment that enables organizations to quickly recover from unexpected events and continue to operate effectively, even in the face of adversity.

To achieve this goal, resilience management involves a wide range of strategies and practices, including risk assessment, contingency planning, crisis communication, and staff training. By implementing these measures, organizations can identify potential threats and develop the capacity to respond to them in a timely and effective manner.

While resilience management has many benefits, it also has its limitations. One of the main challenges is that it can be difficult to anticipate every possible threat or disruption that an organization may face, making it hard to prepare for all eventualities. Additionally, resilience management can be resource-intensive, requiring significant investments in training, technology, and personnel. Despite these challenges, the importance of resilience management cannot be overstated. In today's fast-paced and unpredictable business environment, organizations that are able to quickly adapt and recover from disruptions are much more likely to succeed. By adopting a resilience management approach, organizations can create a culture of preparedness that enables them to respond to unexpected events with confidence and agility, ultimately enhancing their ability to thrive in an increasingly complex and competitive marketplace.

Big idea

State of the art

What is meant by resilience?

The current understanding of managing resilience within organizations emphasizes the importance of taking a holistic and proactive approach to build resilience at individual, team, and organizational levels. This includes creating a culture that supports resilience, investing in training and development programs, developing contingency plans and risk management strategies, and using data and feedback to continuously improve resilience management practices.

Several studies have shown that organizations that prioritize resilience management are more likely to be successful in adapting to change, achieving their goals, and maintaining high levels of employee engagement and well-being. However, implementing resilience management requires a long-term commitment and a willingness to adapt to changing circumstances.

What are the key elements of resilience management?

What is difference between risk and reslience?

What is the current understanding of managing resilience?

Historical perspective

Where does resilience management come from and what are the underlaying causes of the increasing importance of the topic over the last decades?

Application

Case analysis: BP and Deepwater Horizon

This section will shortly analyse the case of the incident of Deepwater Horizon and which mistakes were made leading to this disaster regarding resilience management.

Essential parameters for resilient project management

The essential themes of resilient project management are mentioned in this paragraph to highlight the interdependencies between each of them.

Limitations

Measurements of resilience

Are there indices which enable the measurement of resilience and therefore, ensure an assessment whether a project is able to recover from arising uncertainties in the environment.

Limiting factors

What are the limiting parameters of implementing resilient management structure within an organization?

References

1.Blay, Karen B. (2017): Resilience in projects: definition, dimensions, antecedents and consequences. Loughborough University. Thesis. https://hdl.handle.net/2134/27531

2.Frigotto, M.L., Young, M., Pinheiro, R. (2022). Resilience in Organizations and Societies: The State of the Art and Three Organizing Principles for Moving Forward. In: Pinheiro, R., Frigotto, M.L., Young, M. (eds) Towards Resilient Organizations and Societies. Public Sector Organizations. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82072-5_1

3.Stefan Tengblad, Margareta Oudhuis (2017). The Resilience Framework: Organizing for Sustained Viability. https://doi-org.proxy.findit.cvt.dk/10.1007/978-981-10-5314-6

4.Leichenko, Robin & Mcdermott, Melanie & Bezborodko, Ekaterina. (2015). Barriers, Limits and Limitations to Resilience. Journal of Extreme Events. 2.

5.Alfonso Natale, Thomas Poppensieker, and Michael Thun 2022, From risk management to strategic resilience, McKinsey & Company, accessed 19. February 2023, <https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/risk-and-resilience/our-insights/from-risk-management-to-strategic-resilience>