Scenario planning after 9/11: managing the impact of a catastrophic event

Managers need a framework for assessing various kinds of risk and uncertainty that will continue to confront corporate decision makers as the 9/11 event plays out over the following months and years. The authors suggest an innovative scenario process, one that provides business continuity planning and medium‐term operational planning with a more rigorous analytical grounding, but without overburdening the process with excessive and ultimately counter‐productive complexity. The authors have introduced alternative scenario‐based tools to respond to this specific need for continuity assurance and near‐term operations planning. Case one: business continuity planning (BCP) for the management of one leading global financial services firm committed to a process of identifying and remedying gaps in the recoverability of its key assets. Workshops developed strategies that would close unacceptable asset recovery gaps in two scenarios. Case two: medium term operational planning for a professional services firm in the weeks that followed 9/11 evaluated the plausible range of impacts on their business and operations as the USA and the world took action and terrorist groups responded further. Case three: three years ago the US Coast Guard developed scenarios for very long range strategic planning for their long view project. The Coast Guard developed ten basic strategies from these scenarios. The fourth strategy was “Acquire full maritime domain awareness”. The goal was to give the Coast Guard the ability to acquire, track, and identify in real time any vessel or aircraft entering America’s maritime domain. Maritime domain awareness (MDA) turned out to be highly relevant for USCG decision making both before and after 9/11. Of all the major US federal services involved in the 9/11 response operation, the Coast Guard was singled out for its agility and preparedness.