business continuity | risk management | iso 31000 | crisis management | succession planning | operational resilience
What You Will Learn:
- Build a risk register with named owners rather than a document nobody opens
- Apply ISO 31000, the risk hierarchy and the three lines of defence
- Identify the roles whose sudden loss would actually stop the business
- Build a bench for every critical role, and measure its depth
- Calculate demand against availability and find the gap before it bites
- Cut payroll in the least damaging order when there is no alternative
- Deliver bad news to the people staying, and rebuild their sense of safety
- Audit your current state across thirteen sections with a weighted index
- Learn alongside Mike’s 1.6 million students from 185 countries
- Draw on the author’s work at Preply, Wargaming, iDeals and Alfa-Bank
Why This Isn’t Just Another Compliance Box-Ticking Exercise
Let’s be honest: most risk management courses are a total snooze-fest. They usually involve a dry lecturer reciting ISO clauses while you daydream about your next sprint planning. But I picked up “Business Continuity: Prepare, Respond and Recover” because, frankly, the tech world has been a bit of a dumpster fire lately. Between sudden layoffs, shifting market demands, and the constant threat of operational outages, “winging it” is no longer a viable strategy for career growth.
What I appreciated most about Mike’s approach—drawing from his high-stakes experience at places like Preply and Wargaming—is that he ditches the theoretical fluff. He treats operational resilience like a product feature. It’s not about having a PDF buried in a SharePoint folder that nobody opens; it’s about building a living, breathing system. This course moves from beginner to advanced concepts without losing the audience, focusing heavily on job-ready skills that you can actually deploy during a Tuesday morning crisis. It’s less about “following the rules” and more about “not letting the ship sink when the engine room catches fire.”
Prerequisites
You don’t need a specialized degree or a decade in C-suite leadership to get value here. However, it helps if you:
- Have a basic understanding of how your company makes money (the “value chain”).
- Are comfortable using industry-standard tools like Excel or Google Sheets for data modeling.
- Possess a healthy dose of skepticism toward “everything is fine” corporate cultures.
- Work in a role where you have some oversight of people or processes—managers, founders, and ops leads will get the most out of this.
Skills & Tools You’ll Master
This course is essentially a hands-on lab for organizational survival. You aren’t just watching videos; you’re building frameworks. Mike guides you through the ISO 31000 framework in a way that feels tactical rather than academic. You’ll dive deep into risk hierarchy and the “three lines of defence,” which is crucial for anyone looking into certification prep for professional risk management roles.
One of the most practical segments involves creating a weighted audit index across thirteen different sections of your business. It’s a real-world project that leaves you with a tangible score of your current state. You’ll also get your hands dirty with succession planning tools—learning how to calculate “bench depth” and identifying those “single points of failure” (people whose sudden departure would literally stop the business). It’s grim, but it’s the most job-ready skill you can have in a volatile market.
Career Benefits & Job Roles
In the current tech climate, being the person who knows how to “recover” is often more valuable than being the person who only knows how to “build.” Completing this course positions you for several high-impact roles, including Operations Manager, Risk Consultant, Business Continuity Planner, or even a more resilient CTO/VPE.
For those looking at career growth, this provides a bridge into the world of Crisis Management and Corporate Governance. Having this on your profile shows that you think like an owner. It proves you understand that business continuity isn’t just an IT problem; it’s a people and process problem. If you’re aiming for a promotion to a Director or VP level, being able to articulate a “three lines of defence” strategy is a massive differentiator during interviews.
Pros
- Actionable Risk Registers: Mike teaches you how to build a risk register with actual named owners. This moves the needle from “passive documentation” to “active accountability.”
- The “Human” Side of Crisis: The section on delivering bad news and rebuilding a sense of safety for “survivors” after layoffs is incredibly poignant. Most courses ignore the psychological toll of crisis management, but this one leans into it.
- Global Perspectives: Learning alongside a community of 1.6 million students across 185 countries gives the discussion forums a unique, global flavor that you won’t find in localized training.
- Battle-Tested Insights: The author’s background at Alfa-Bank and iDeals shines through; the advice feels like it was forged in actual corporate emergencies, not a boardroom brainstorm.
Cons
- Heavy Manual Data Entry: The 13-section weighted index and the bench-depth calculations require a significant amount of manual data gathering from your own company. It’s a real-world project, so it’s time-consuming. If you’re looking for a “quick win” you can finish in an hour, this isn’t it—you have to do the work to get the results.