Like six weeks ago at work I suggested to my boss that we run a Diaster Recovery Tabletop exercise for a pandemic or “everybody works from home” scenario. A Tabletop is more of a “what if?” discussion, where we think through an issue, then put forth a scenario and throw some wrenches in it along the way, then write down what we learned to try and find holes that need patching in our processes, things that should be bought, areas where training is needed, that kind of thing.
I could tell my boss thought I was over-reacting and it probably wasn’t necessary and gave me the “Well, if you think you have time, go ahead.” so I didn’t really move forward with it because I really didn’t have time and could tell he didn’t think it would be useful.
Two and a half weeks ago I brought it up again, and I think he was probably annoyed with me for bringing it up again but told me to talk to the IT director (who is a peer of my boss, not his boss) and if he thought it was a good idea to go ahead. So I did, and the IT director agreed and I said I’d try to do it last Friday but ended up not being able to have it done until that day, so we scheduled it for yesterday.
A lot of people saw the meeting invite go out a week ago Friday and were like “lol yeah OK, sure” and someone even nicely told me he thought it was an over-reaction. And other people were like “I don’t see the big deal, everybody works from home, what needs to be discussed?”
And then last week... happened.
Yesterday I held the meeting for everyone who works out of our local office. Nearly everyone attended or called in (over 30 people), and it lasted the entire hour I scheduled it for and I still had to skip an entire planned scenario (I had two in there just in case I needed to fill some time) and I left with a page and a half of notes of things either we needed everyone in the office to do, or things to bring up to senior management to discuss. I stayed late typing up the results, summarizing what was discussed to the entire office, putting together a to-do list for everyone (of like a dozen items) to prepare for it happening, and then an entirely separate list for senior management.
Several people told me the meeting was great and that we should have maybe done it earlier.
