You can define the risks that might impact your business with a scenario analysis of your business services in the Operational Resilience application. By adding participants, such as your users with the sn_oper_res.manager or sn_oper_res.user roles from the associated business functions to your scenario analysis, you can collect their inputs, calculate the possible disruptions, and determine if a service was breached.

Overview of a scenario analysis

Scenarios represent the business-specific risks that are used to test how events can impact your organization. If you have a scenario analysis, you can determine the operational resilience of your business services. For example, if you have the sn_oper_res.manager role, you can use the Scenario Analysis form in the application to select the business services, the participants that are associated with the business functions, and the associated scenario events to analyze.

After you analyze all the scenario events, you verify the status of the services and calculate the duration of the disruption. You can also collate the gaps, recommendations, and observations from the participants to complete the analysis. Next, you request that an approver approves the scenario analysis. After it's approved, you close it and see its status in the dashboard.

Tasks to set up a scenario analysis and workflow states

If you have the sn_oper_res.manager role, you can set up a scenario analysis for your business services. As a scenario analysis owner, you can do the following tasks:
  • Create a scenario that helps you to determine the risks that are applicable to your business.
  • Add the services, participants, scenario events, and approvers to your scenario.
  • Associate one or more events with a scenario.
  • Perform a scenario analysis and collect the observations, gaps, and recommendations from the participants about the scenario analysis events. The participants of a scenario analysis are the users with the sn_oper_res.manager or sn_oper_res.user roles from the associated business functions, such as Finance or HR departments. These participants can add their work notes that are related to a scenario.
  • Calculate the disruption to your services and determine if any service was breached.
  • Send your analysis for a review to the approver of the scenario and request an approval.
  • Close the approved scenario analysis.

When you set up a scenario analysis in the Operational Resilience application, it is associated with the states that are shown in the following table.

Figure 1. States that are associated with a scenario analysis
States that are associated with a scenario analysis.
Table 1. States that are associated with a scenario analysis
StateDescription
Draft

First state of the scenario analysis. If you have the sn_oper_res.manager role, you can initiate a scenario analysis, provide the name and description of the analysis, and analyze one or more scenarios and associated events.​ The sn_oper_res.manager (the logged-in user) is automatically displayed as the owner of the scenario in the Owner field.​

If you're an analysis owner, you can add your business services, participants, and scenarios to the analysis and assign a plan-approver and result-approver to it.

When you submit the scenario analysis, a notification is sent to the plan-approver. The state of the scenario analysis is updated to the Pending Plan-approval state.
Note: You must associate at least one service before moving the scenario analysis to the Pending Plan-approval state.​
Pending Plan-approval Second state of the scenario analysis. As a pending plan-approver, you must review the scope of the analysis in this state. You can check the setup of the services, participants, associated scenario events, and approvers and then approve the analysis. When you approve the analysis, the state of the scenario analysis is updated to the Analyze state.
Analyze

Third state of the scenario analysis. In this state, the participants of the scenario analysis can add work notes on the Scenario Analysis form and work on events that are based on their responsibility.

If you're the analysis owner, you must collect the feedback from the participants and submit their observations, gaps, and recommendations for each associated event on the form. When you submit this information, the state of the scenario analysis is updated to the Pending Result-approval state.
Pending Result-approval

Fourth state of the scenario analysis. In this state, the summary details of the scenario analysis are auto-filled in the application on the Scenario Analysis form.

If you're the scenario analysis owner, you can verify the details, check if any of your services are breached, and request the result-approval for the analysis​.

If you're the result-approver, you can review the analysis scope in this state, ensure that it is a valid analysis for the selected business services, and approve or reject the analysis.

When you approve the analysis, the state of the scenario analysis is updated to the Approved state.
Approved

Fifth state of the scenario analysis. In this state, an email notification is also sent to the approver for reference.

When the state of the scenario analysis is in the Approved state, you can close it.
Closed Final state of the scenario analysis. As the analysis owner, when you close the analysis, its state is updated to Closed.

For more information on the Operational Resilience roles, see Roles installed with Operational Resilience.

Summary of your scenario analysis

While you are doing the scenario analysis, you can verify the status of your business services in the Summary panel of the Scenario Analysis form in the Operational Resilience application.

A typical Scenario Analysis form is shown in the following example.

Figure 2. Scenario Analysis form
Scenario Analysis form.
The Summary panel provides information about your business services, associated scenarios, disruptions, and events. For a description of the field values, see the following table.
Table 2. Summary of your services, scenarios, disruptions, and events
FieldDescription
Number of services Number of services that are associated with the scenario analysis.
Number of services under impact tolerance Number of services that are associated with the scenario analysis and that are under impact tolerance.
Number of services above impact tolerance Number of services that are associated with the scenario analysis and that are above impact tolerance.
Number of scenarios Number of scenarios that are associated with the analysis.
Number of scenarios completed Number of completed scenarios that are associated with the analysis.
Number of events Number of events that are associated with the analysis.
Number of events completed Number of completed events that are associated with the analysis.
Disruption duration Time duration between the end time of the last event and the start time of the first event. It is displayed in the number of days.
Duration of events with overlaps Summary of all event durations including the overlapping events and pauses. It is displayed in the number of days and minutes.
Duration of events without overlaps Summary of all event durations without the overlapping events and pauses. It is displayed in the number of days and minutes.

Related lists on the Scenario Analysis form

When you create a scenario analysis, the related lists are displayed on the form as shown in the following example.
Figure 3. Related lists on the Scenario Analysis form
Related lists on the Scenario Analysis form.

You can configure the related lists on the Scenario Analysis form by using the New and Add actions as shown in the example. See the following table for the names, description, and actions that are associated with the related lists on the Scenario Analysis form.

Table 3. Related lists on the Scenario Analysis form
NameDescriptionNew actionAdd action
Services ​List of the services Not applicable

Table view where you can select multiple services that you can add to the current scenario analysis​.

Role: This action requires the sn_oper_res.admin role or you should be the owner of the scenario analysis to add a service.​
Participants​ List of the participants of the current scenario analysis​. Action to create a participants record. Role: You must have the sn_oper_res.user role to perform this action.​ Not applicable
Scenario events List of the scenario events that are associated with the current scenario analysis​. ​Not applicable

Table view where you can select multiple scenario events that you can add to the current scenario analysis​.

Role: This action requires the sn_oper_res.admin role or you should be the owner of the scenario analysis to add a scenario event.​
Approvers List of the approvers that are associated with the current scenario analysis​. ​Not applicable ​Not applicable

Setting up your services with the sn_oper_res.critical_services property

You can analyze the importance and the impact tolerance of your business services by using the assessment questionnaire template in the Operational Resilience application. For information on analyzing the importance and impact tolerance of your business services, see Analyzing the importance and impact tolerance of the business services.

As the scenario analysis owner, you can select the services that you have already assessed with calculated importance and impact tolerance.​ You have to ensure that the selected services meet the entity filter condition that is defined in the entity type whose sys_id is defined in the sn_oper_res.critical_services property​. For information about this property, see Properties installed with Operational Resilience.