Yousif Faraj: ‘There was no plan for such a major event’

• 25 Aug 2021
• Yousif,  Lisa

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BCI Member Yousif Ebrahim Faraj, Senior Lecturer and Business Continuity Manager talks to the BCI about the Business Continuity Strategy implemented in the Bahrain Business Institute of Banking during COVID-19

The Business Institute of Banking and Finance (BIBF) plays a vital role in the training and development of human capital in the Kingdom of Bahrain. As a senior lecturer, I teach a range of different topics related to business continuity management, project management, and digital transformation - including business continuity coordination for the institute.

Like many organizations, BIBF was impacted by COVID 19 as there was no plan for such a major event. The organization decided to make quick decisions once the government announced the ending of all physical classes in the education sector. We had to translate the change of virtual classes to all stakeholders which required intense communication and coordination.

Shifting the curriculum into the virtual environment, required lecturers to conduct even more group exercises which led to lecturers having to change some components of the materials, making classes fast and fit for purpose. At the beginning, there was some minor issues with the platform as there was a lack of experience in conducting classes in this way, but the pace to adopt was very fast.

Challenges we faced were mainly around how stakeholders learnt how to use the platform. The BC team, alongside the IT team, enhanced and developed a platform that covered most of the educational components, but were of course met with challenges such as:

• How to train the lecturers on the platform within specific time.
• How to prepare a student guide to access the platform and to ensure smooth   understanding.
• How to establish the courses material to be fit for virtual training.
• How to ensure clear stakeholder communication

During the first month, BIBF worked hard to ensure that the stakeholders got all the information they needed to attend the classes virtually, which we resolved by providing each student with guidelines on how to use the platform in advance, this also ensured all the students accessed the classes with minimum issues.

We used different techniques to get in touch with the students such as telephone, email, MS Teams meetings…etc.

As there were no physical classes, overall business was squeezed to some extent, as the nature of the organization is to deliver planned and non-plan training customizable to a client’s needs. To ensure business continuation as per calendar and non-calendar training, the organization decided on the immediate action to convert all the courses to be virtual (public, special, professional, and academic courses).

A plan was put in place to ensure that all the courses were delivered virtually as it was established quite quickly that this was in fact a first experience of this kind of situation. The plan was consisting of different components:

Platform implementation:

How to implement the platform and ensure all the elements achieved the educational requirements.

Faculty training:

How to train the faculty and ensure that they can utilize all of the features properly.

Communication:

How to communicate with all the stakeholders:

A – What to communicate.

B – When to communicate.

C – How to ensure that the stakeholders understood the requirements.

Improvement:

How to ensure that there was a continuously a feedback from the stakeholders about the process, platform, and improvements.

The BC plan was focused on how to convert physical courses to virtual courses - ensuring that all stakeholders can use the platform with satisfaction. Our intention with building this platform was to ensure the transition was simple and accessible for students.

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