How to Prepare for Your Next Network War Room Debate - Part 2
October 24, 2018

Jay Botelho
LiveAction

Share this

Whether proactive or reactive in nature, war room sessions fundamentally come down to problem solving. But the ultimate goal is to eliminate these sessions altogether.

Start with How to Prepare for Your Next Network War Room Debate - Part 1

However, sometimes problems still happen no matter how proactive you are. If you have to go to the war room, and you want to win, here are some key tips:

Populate the room wisely and sparingly

The old adage about the bigger the group, the less work gets done certainly holds true for the war room. You want all critical functions represented, but with a single representative. If someone needs access to their teams for more details, they should report back, not drag more participants into the meetings.

Define roles and responsibilities

Clearly define roles and responsibilities for the war room. In most cases, the primary responsibility is to develop a comprehensive proposal to present to executive management. When done well, the execs shouldn't even need to participate. The right team should be able to deliver a rock-solid proposal, regardless of whether the driving force is project-focused or response-focused.

Bring data

Bring all the data you have and be prepared to share it. There are no secrets in the war room. All corporate politics must be put aside for a successful resolution. Remove blinders regarding available data. For example, when dealing with a security issue, don't forget to involve the network team. They often have critical data that's overlooked, at least in the beginning of the situational analysis.

Know the end game

Have an idea of the ultimate win-win outcome before you enter the war room. This is probably easier when the situation is project-focused vs. response-focused, but it's critical either way.

Involve PR experts

Involve PR experts for events that will impact the external perception of the brand. This is extremely important when dealing with response-focused issues, especially security breaches. External communication is a legal requirement for security breaches, and you need to get it right. It's the responsibility of the entire team to craft an accurate and complete response, but it's best for all communication to funnel through a single PR representative.

Plan to communicate only once

Analyze ALL the data and get the full extent of the problem isolated as early as possible. Communicate as clearly as you can. A great example of what not to do would be the Equifax breach, where the initial breach announcement was made approximately 6 weeks after discovery, with news of ever-greater exposure continuing to be reported by Equifax for more than 6 months.

War rooms can be intimidating places with lots of finger pointing, blame and chaos. For the network team, having the proper visibility tools in place is a win-win. First, it helps reduce these sessions, and second, if called in to answer the bell, it gives you the data needed to properly contribute and help solve the problem quickly. When the fingers start pointing, will you be ready?

Jay Botelho is Senior Director of Product Management at LiveAction
Share this

The Latest

November 21, 2024

Broad proliferation of cloud infrastructure combined with continued support for remote workers is driving increased complexity and visibility challenges for network operations teams, according to new research conducted by Dimensional Research and sponsored by Broadcom ...

November 20, 2024

New research from ServiceNow and ThoughtLab reveals that less than 30% of banks feel their transformation efforts are meeting evolving customer digital needs. Additionally, 52% say they must revamp their strategy to counter competition from outside the sector. Adapting to these challenges isn't just about staying competitive — it's about staying in business ...

November 19, 2024

Leaders in the financial services sector are bullish on AI, with 95% of business and IT decision makers saying that AI is a top C-Suite priority, and 96% of respondents believing it provides their business a competitive advantage, according to Riverbed's Global AI and Digital Experience Survey ...

November 18, 2024

SLOs have long been a staple for DevOps teams to monitor the health of their applications and infrastructure ... Now, as digital trends have shifted, more and more teams are looking to adapt this model for the mobile environment. This, however, is not without its challenges ...

November 14, 2024

Modernizing IT infrastructure has become essential for organizations striving to remain competitive. This modernization extends beyond merely upgrading hardware or software; it involves strategically leveraging new technologies like AI and cloud computing to enhance operational efficiency, increase data accessibility, and improve the end-user experience ...

November 13, 2024

AI sure grew fast in popularity, but are AI apps any good? ... If companies are going to keep integrating AI applications into their tech stack at the rate they are, then they need to be aware of AI's limitations. More importantly, they need to evolve their testing regiment ...

November 12, 2024

If you were lucky, you found out about the massive CrowdStrike/Microsoft outage last July by reading about it over coffee. Those less fortunate were awoken hours earlier by frantic calls from work ... Whether you were directly affected or not, there's an important lesson: all organizations should be conducting in-depth reviews of testing and change management ...

November 08, 2024

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 11, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) ...

November 07, 2024

On average, only 48% of digital initiatives enterprise-wide meet or exceed their business outcome targets according to Gartner's annual global survey of CIOs and technology executives ...

November 06, 2024

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly reshaping industries around the world. From optimizing business processes to unlocking new levels of innovation, AI is a critical driver of success for modern enterprises. As a result, business leaders — from DevOps engineers to CTOs — are under pressure to incorporate AI into their workflows to stay competitive. But the question isn't whether AI should be adopted — it's how ...