5.3.4 Plan testing and validation It is one thing to have a plan; it is another thing to have a plan that you can rely on to work. There is an old military maxim that ‘A plan only gets you into first contact with the enemy. After that, you fly by the seat of your pants’ (Anon). A 1993 IBM report on business continuity planning confirmed this when it revealed that ‘half of the plans failed completely or substantially when they were first tested’ (IBM, 1993, p. 5). The IBM report identified three categories of pla
5.3.2 Plan auditing Having got the draft plan, it is worth checking it over to see that all the major issues have been covered. The appendix below contains a set of guidelines for the initial audit of a generic ‘general purpose’ plan. For site-specific plans such as might be produced by an SHE manager in industry, or a business continuity manager for an office complex, the headings may need some modification. Guidelines for an emergency response plan audit (PDF, 2 pages, 0.1MB) 3.1 Types of incident Now we can progress to an examination of some incidents by studying selected reports and publications. Returning to the word ‘accident’, we can cite another definition: An accident is an undesired event which results in physical harm and/or property damage. It usually results from a contact with a source of energy above the threshold limit of the body or structure. (Kuhlman, 1977, p. 5) 8 Summary We are biologically predisposed to provide for our offspring and may try to ensure that this provision continues after our death. However, our interactions with other members of society are wide-ranging and many people leave legacies to benefit the wider community. All species alter their environment to some extent because they do not live in isolation from one another. The study of the interactions between plants, animals and their environ 4.4 Genetic diversity and mass extinctions It is for this reason that there are now international agreements on the need to work together to retain genetic diversity in all species and, more generally, biological diversity (species and habitat diversity). From a Introduction This unit is from our archive and it is an adapted extract from Human biology and health (SK220), which is no longer in presentation. If you wish to study formally at The Open University, you may wish to explore the courses we offer in this curriculum area. To be able to understand the importance of the environment for our health, we need to know a little about the interdepende Introduction Global warming: are we responsible? Is our environmental impact damaging the planet? This unit examines the use of ozone depleting technology, the impact of fossil fuel use and explores how the development of technology can influence the direction of a society. From the Industrial Revolution to the present day find out how we have changed the planet. This unit is from our archive and is an adapted extract from Working with our environment: technology for a sustainable future (T172) whic 6.2 Some general features of communitarianism and cosmopolitanism There are two very different and sharply contrasting views about how the international arena can be theorised, should be organised and can be described. One side sees the international sphere as made up of a plurality of interacting cultures with incommensurable values, while the other side deploys general concepts of rights and applies these to humanity as a whole. These two constructions rest upon very different views of what human beings are, and how they do and should interact together. 6.1 Introduction The international level can be viewed as an arena of politics in its own right and not just as a context for states and other actors. If we think of the international world in this way, how should relations between states, and other actors on the international stage, be constructed? To what extent should those relations be regulated? We can ask whether relations between states, and states' policy making, should be dictated by allegedly universally shared human rights principles, or by other o 1 International human rights: an introduction There are many examples of claims for rights in the international sphere. One example was reported in September 2002. The British government was asked to make efforts to have a British man held by the Americans at Guantanamo Bay deported to Britain to face charges of terrorism there in connection with the attacks on 11 September 2001. Concerns were expressed about the denial of this man's human rights at Guantanamo Bay. Are alleged terrorists entitled to human rights? Can the denial of 3.2 Migrations of life As biologist and pioneer environmentalist Rachel Carson once wrote: ‘the stocking of the islands has been accomplished by the strangest migration in earth's history – a migration that began long before man appeared on earth and is still continuing’ (Carson, 1953, p. 66). Austronesian voyagers may have been the first people to venture far into open water, but many other species, as Carson suggests, have also found ways of negotiating passages across the ocean. Arriving at pockets of land 1 Dividing the planet A good globe can set you back quite a lot of money. Of course, I don't mean the little moulded plastic planets or the globes you can blow up as if the world were a beach ball, but the decent sized ones that sit solidly on turned wooden bases and quietly emanate authority from the corner of a room. Yet these days, it hardly seems worthwhile making such an investment. Countries appear to change their colour, their shape or their name with remarkable rapidity. It has become a cliché to po 3.1.2 Textiles and clothing Here, the conflict is largely between developing country exporters and developed countries that were reluctant to expose their textile producers to cheaper imports. Here too the UR agreement had a proviso to soften its immediate impact, and a loophole that developing countries seem not to have anticipated. In order to enable textile producers in developed countries to adjust gradually to increased import competition, quantitative restrictions were to be phased out over ten years, starting in 2.2 Quality of life Unlike non-living systems, all living systems have behaviours that have evolved to achieve a certain 5.3 Order and chaos How can we explain a sudden switch of behaviour at a particular temperature? There must be two competing influences (say X and Y) that depend differently on temperature. Figure 23 indicates how a unique temperature (a so-called critical temperature, Tc) arises, 4.4 Summary of Section 4 Thermal energy is a random thing, so any group of particles possessing it will have a distribution of kinetic energies. The fraction of particles with energy greater than an amount E1 is proportional to exp(−E1/kT). Thermally activated rates follow Arrhenius's law and are characterised by an activation energy. Diffusion in solids and electrical conduction i 6.6 Professional bodies and societies Consider joining a learned society or professional organisation. They can be very useful for conference bulletins as well as in-house publications, often included in the subscription. Don't forget to ask about student rates. Try looking for the websites of learned societies associated with your subject area (e.g. The Royal Society, the Institute of Electrical 6.1 Introduction The process of keeping up-to-date in your chosen subject area is useful for your studies and afterwards, for your own personal satisfaction, or perhaps in your career as part of your continuing professional development. There are a great many tools available that make it quite easy to keep yourself up to date. You can set them up so that the information comes to you, rather than you having to go out on the web looking for it. Over the next few pages, you will be experimenting with some 1.6 Keeping up-to-date How familiar are you with the following different ways of keeping up to date with information; alerts, mailing lists, newsgroups, blogs, RSS, professional bodies and societies? 5 – Very familiar 4 – Familiar 3 – Fairly familiar 2 – Not very familiar 1 – Not familiar at all 4.3.2 Setting goals and objectives Whatever the structure and culture of an organisation and the range of people involved, goals and objectives are usually seen as a valuable management tool. This is as relevant to a project team as it is to a whole organisation. What I will focus on here are some of the tensions and ambiguities surrounding the management of goals, especially in the context of team development. To be effective in clarifying and achieving the team task, we need to take account of the variety of (often conflicti
Question 10
