The news this week in the UK has been awash with articles in relation to the potential problems that the Olympics 2012 could bring with reports of transport chaos, security rehearsals happening near Forrester’s London office to secret security documents being left on a train which detail policing measures. This is undoubtedly a unique occasion but with many eyes watching the UK this coming summer it’s something the planners simply have to get right. 

At Forrester, we believe that IT functions need to seriously prepare for the Olympic period also and so we will be holding a half day, collaborative event for our FLB members and interested prospects on Wednesday, 22nd February 2012 from 12:45 – 4:30pm at Forrester’s London office to explore strategic and tactical solutions to these risks. This session will be led by Senior Analyst Dave Johnson, a former software executive with 15 years of industry experience focused on client management and related operational processes and tools.

So why does this matter to you?  

Simply, because of the philosophical rules of ‘cause and effect’ in relation to the IT services that you provide to your users (actually customers, I don’t like the word ‘users’). With the Olympics being a high profile event then any IT service failures will also be high profile to your executives. Let’s have a look at a simple example:

Increased visitors to London = Potential Transport chaos = employees working from home = extraordinary demand on certain IT services (e.g., VPN) = core IT infrastructure components (network, etc.) pushed to functional limits = service issues = complaints from IT customers

Your role – to help make sure that the IT function have answers from an IT service perspective to this scenario and others, whether this be through technology, people, or process contingencies. Now you might also point out that the example above could be handled via local I&O in that area but have you thought about employees in your region streaming events over the corporate network and how you might manage this?

I would be interested to know about how your organization is responding to potential risks posed by the Olympics? Also if you are an IT executive and would like to know more detail about the event or would like to potentially attend then please send me an email jrakowski@forrester.com or tweet me @momskij.