A writing lesson

If you work in any business more sophisticated than bumming around on the beach, at some point you are going to be punished for your many sins by being asked to write a risk management, change management, disaster recovery or staff management plan or some other equally pointless document. Usually, someone will give you a sample document that they picked up off a website somewhere and thought - but not for too long, they just wanted to spend a minute or two on making it look like they had researched the task before giving it to you - might be a good basis to work from.

And it will probably be a bit daunting; 30 odd pages, lots of text and diagrams, flow charts, arrows and the like.

But panic not! With a little help from me, and a bit of exposure to a church, you can knock this kind of job over in no time. Let's use a risk management plan to illustrate.

Part 1 - The Creed

Open with a statement like "Management of risks is crucial to the success of a modern business. Compliance with ISO 9001 on Risk Management helps to ensure that ..."

This is the statement of faith, of what your company believes, what it truly, sincerely believes other companies want it to believe. It doesn't mean anything or, if it does, the statement is so self-evidently true that you might wonder why anyone would bother making it. However, this Creed covers off the bit on the corporate website where it says "We are committed to contemporary risk management best practices". Most people reading the document won't get past the Creed because, seeing a statement like that above, they can nod sagely to themselves, reassured that you are one of the faithful.

Part 2 - The priest's greeting

You need to get risk management into the context of your particular church company. You need to show an awareness of the environment that your company works in and its particular needs. But you're like the relieving minister here, the locum - you have no idea what kind of environment the company works in, you just got given the task because you annoyed the boss. Don't stress, however, because no one actually understands the business environment - it's just one of those pieces of knowledge that management pretends to have over you, thus justifying their obscene salaries - so you cover your bases here with something like:

"ACME operates in a rapidly changing, high risk environment in which increased pressure from globalisation creates a high risk operating ecosystem."

Again, doesn't mean anything but is true enough of any business (except, perhaps, waste management because I can't see the Chinese wanting to take over our crap) that you can use it as an opening sentence without worrying too much that it won't be accurate. Follow it up with something about the corporate structure and highlight how the fact that you're a small / large / diverse / unified / local / global enterprise makes you particularly vulnerable to the risks of modern business. Note the use of the word "ecosystem" there. Doesn't mean a damn thing outside biology but using it makes you sound like you're at the forefront of research into the corporate patois.

Part 3 - De Profundis - "Out of the deep"

Time to get profound and to show your readers (those few who have made it this far) how you intend to get to grips with the real framework of the concepts for thinking about managing people to help them manage risks. You need a strategy!

Open with a statement of what the strategy is supposed to achieve, framed in terms to make it look like the ends and the means not only justify each other but are, in fact, the same thing.

"ACME will take a strategic approach to risk management to ensure that the priority risks are identified, validated, prioritised and options for treatment developed in a timely manner to help ensure that steps are taken to ..."

That's just an outline of the generic approach to solving any problem, nothing really profound but, boy, doesn't it sound good?!

Notice that I've used "help ensure" again there? Very important! If the brown stuff hits the air conditioning, you can't be blamed. You promised you would help to ensure and help you did. You weren't on the hook to actually ensure anything.

And you need a circular diagram. Looks like this (zoom in to read the text - it's worth it)

No one really cares what the words are but it must start with something like "Initiate", must include terms similar to "Analysis" and "Review" and must end where it began - implying a culture of continuous improvement.

In fact, what will happen when the cyclist falls off the wharf is that you'll all react in a blind panic, do whatever it takes to get her back on the bike, the bike back on the path and then, in a moment of joint relief, have a cleansing ale. There will be no analysis or review, just doing and boozing. The absence of reality in the document is not only not a problem, it's truly expected.

Representing your strategy as the arse end of a duck - which is probably closer to the reality of yelling "oh shit" and then winging it, is not going to fly here.

And the Great Circle need not be limited in use to risk management. Analysis, production, teaching, learning, driving, sexual intercourse; anything can be represented on the Great Circle - just tweak the labels a bit. What it says is really obvious but, because it's presented as a Visio chart with coloured arrows and 3D boxes, under the heading "strategy", it looks deeply profound.

Part 4 - Scripture

You need a reference to Holy Writ. What you're looking for here is a standard. And, believe me, there's a standard for everything. Just Google one up. ISO is the best because it looks to the reader like your company is using the same thinking as the Fortune 500.

Dig out a few excerpts and put them in the middle of the page in a little grey box including a really complex reference at the bottom. Something like this.

 No one is going to read what it says or, if they do, notice that you've taken the quote out of context; they'll just assume that the document was written by an expert and that they must know what they're talking about. Preachers use this approach all the time.

Part 5 - Appendices

Even if the most diligent and bloody minded reader has gotten as far as the end of the strategy section, they will not read the Appendices. Nobody reads appendices. It's the bit in which the researcher includes endless tables of incomprehensible data - usually stuff that his kids made up - to lend credence to the rest of the content. This works to your advantage.

If you absolutely must put real numbers in around response times, output levels or performance measures, do it here. But make it complex. Make it statistical. Put it in twenty different tables and endlessly cross reference them.

You are home and dry, my friend, home and dry. If you're ever challenged on detail or concrete implementation options, tell them that it's all in the appendices and that you don't have time to go into the detail right now, you have an important document launch rehearsal to get to!