Terminology Twist!

Most of you that read this post periodically know that I’ve been a business continuity planner for quite some time, in fact – 35 years.  One of my issues with the “industry” over the years has been the constant shift in terminology.  When I started, the process was called disaster recovery, it then became crisis management, the process then became business continuity and today the last time I checked, it was still called business continuity management planning.  So over the years I have been a disaster recovery planner, a crisis management planner, a business continuity planner and now a business continuity management planner.

Now we are starting to see a change in some of the terminology that has been associated with the components of the business continuity professional best practices.  I say, “Leave them alone” – many of us have spent years educating our organizations / clients on these terms.

The most recent change I’ve come across during some recent reading is something called “undetected configuration drift”.  Have you ever seen it used?   I’ve seen it used in a number of fashions and they all make sense from a business continuity perspective, but from a terminology perspective –a bit much, in my opinion.  It sounds like some type of disease or illness.  The term used to be called “gap”.  To me it’s a little easier to say and a lot easier to explain.  What we’re talking about here is the “disparity” between your disaster recovery (technology assets) environment you’ve defined / set aside and the actual technology required at time of event to recover your critical business functions following a major business disruption.  Doesn’t “gap” make more sense?

Let’s commit to the “keep it simple” process!  No need to make things difficult.  “Gap” works for me!