Standbyscenarios

Standbyscenarios are predefined alternative operational conditions and action sequences designed to be activated when the primary scenario becomes infeasible or unavailable. They specify how a system, process, or organization should respond under specified disruption conditions and may include alternative workflows, configurations, personnel, and infrastructure.

The purpose is to reduce decision latency during disruptions, maintain continuity of critical objectives, and provide a structured response that can be rehearsed and adjusted as conditions change.

Development involves risk assessment and business impact analysis; identification of critical objectives and failure modes; design of plausible standby scenarios; clear activation triggers and escalation paths; resource and role assignment; documentation; and integration with testing and drills.

Applications span information technology, manufacturing, energy, transportation, and public safety, including examples such as switching to a backup data center, initiating failover to redundant power, activating an alternate supplier, or diverting operations to an alternate site.

Standbyscenarios supplement other resilience practices such as redundancy, contingency planning, disaster recovery, and incident response. They require ongoing governance, periodic review, and drills to remain accurate as systems, suppliers, and risks evolve. Limitations include cost, complexity, and the risk that standby scenarios are outdated if not regularly tested and updated.