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- When Technology Fails: Keep Your Team Working Through an Outage (3-hour online masterclass)
When Technology Fails: Keep Your Team Working Through an Outage (3-hour online masterclass)
When email, Teams or the internet goes down, your people know who decides, how to reach each other and their customers, and how to keep the critical work moving until the systems return.
The load-shedding years taught South African offices to plan for losing power. Has your team done the same for losing email, Microsoft Teams or the internet? These tools are reliable and long outages are rare, so a team may never have practised for one. The Microsoft 365 outage of November 2026 was a reminder that even the best tools stop sometimes. When they do, the first hour is easily lost: nobody is sure who decides, the contact list is inside the failed system and customers hear nothing. This business continuity masterclass is a three-hour live online session on what managers and teams do while the tools are down.
The session follows the clock of an outage, and every stage answers one question: what do we do now? In the first fifteen minutes, check whether the fault is local or the provider's and alert the named decider, who declares an outage at the agreed trigger and reaches everyone without email. In the first two hours, keep the five tasks that cannot wait going by hand and send customers a holding message. For the rest of the day, update on a set rhythm, keep customer information out of personal accounts and keep a log. In the week after, review what happened, correct the plan and take your questions to IT.
Delegates fill in a one-page outage plan for their own team as they go, then walk it through a short tabletop exercise against a timed scenario. They leave with the plan, the gaps the exercise showed and a personal action list. It is a people-and-process session drawn from BOTI's Conquering Risk Management Course and Cyber security Awareness Course. Technical recovery stays with your IT team or provider, and the session is not technical, legal or insurance advice.
Why this course
For your organisation
- A named decider and deputy in every team, so the first hour is not spent waiting
- Critical work that carries on by hand while the systems are down
- Customers and suppliers who hear from you early, on a channel that still works
- Customer information kept out of personal email and unapproved apps during the workaround
- Team plans in one format, each already walked through once in the session
For your delegates
- A first version of a one-page outage plan for your own team, filled in during the session
- A contact list and phone tree layout that work without email
- The five tasks your team cannot leave undone, each with a first by-hand method to finish at work
- Three customer messages ready to adapt: holding, update and all-clear
- The tabletop scenario in your workbook, to rerun with your own team, and a personal action list
What delegates will be able to do
- Check whether a fault is local or the provider's – the status page first, then IT – before anyone attempts a home-made fix
- Name a decider and a deputy, and set the trigger for declaring an outage
- Build a contact list and phone tree that reach the whole team without email or Teams
- Agree a second channel in advance, with rules for what may never be shared on it
- Identify the five tasks that cannot wait and write a by-hand method for each
- Prepare holding, update and all-clear messages for customers and decide where each is posted
- Keep an outage log and follow a return-to-normal checklist once the systems are back
- Test the one-page plan in a tabletop exercise and turn the gaps into actions with owners and dates
Who should attend
Line managers, team leaders, supervisors and office managers who have to keep a team working on the day the tools stop, and owners of smaller businesses with no IT department of their own. HR and learning managers book it so that every team holds a plan in the same format. Risk, compliance and IT staff are welcome: the session shows what the business side will do while the systems are being restored. No technical background is needed.
Course outline
Live session – Follow the clock of an outage: the first fifteen minutes, the first two hours, the rest of the day and the week after
Opening and the first fifteen minutes: is it us, and who decides?
- Welcome, the clock the session follows, what stays with IT, and the one-page outage plan in five parts: who decides, how we reach each other, what cannot wait, what we tell customers and how we practise
- Poll: if email stopped right now, whom would you phone first – and is that number anywhere except your inbox?
- Is it us or the provider? The provider's status page, your link to IT and the home-made fixes to avoid
- Who decides: a named decider and deputy, what they may decide alone, the trigger for declaring an outage and whom they report to – your team's page sits under any plan your organisation already has
- The contact list that works without email: two routes to each person, names and numbers only, a printed copy and a copy on phones kept safe – and telling staff why their number is held
- How the word gets out: a phone tree (who phones whom, and what happens when nobody answers) and a second channel your company has approved, one that does not rely on the system or sign-in that failed
- Workbook: write in your decider, deputy and trigger, name your communicator, log keeper and link to IT, and start your contact list
The first two hours: keep the critical work moving and tell customers
- The five tasks that cannot wait, and how long each can stop before real harm is done – a small business impact analysis
- A by-hand method for each task: the steps, the paper or offline form, who does it, where the record goes – and the checks that stay in place (a payment still needs its approvals; some tasks should wait, not be worked around)
- Cover and copies: a second person for every task and role, and what to keep printed or offline – the plan, the contact list, price lists, key templates and the week's diary
- The holding message: what is affected, how to reach us and when we will update – true even when little is known
- Where it goes when email is down – phone, SMS, website notice, social media pages, voicemail greeting – who in your organisation controls each, and the second contact route customers should already have
- Workbook: list your five tasks, write one line on how to do each by hand, then the full steps for the first, and adapt the holding message
The rest of the day: steady updates, safe workarounds and the return to normal
- One voice on a set rhythm: who writes updates, who approves them and how often they go out, even when the news is 'no change'
- Safe workarounds: no customer, staff or company information in personal email or unapproved apps, no shared passwords and no trust in callers who offer to 'fix' the outage – the duty to protect personal information under POPIA does not pause
- The log keeper and the no-system work list: recording times, decisions and by-hand work, and keeping people usefully busy
- Back to normal: the decider calls the end, capture the by-hand records, watch for late and duplicate emails, answer the most urgent customers first, send the all-clear and close the second channel
- Exercise on screen: three improvised workarounds – which ones put customer information at risk?
Tabletop exercise: your plan against the clock
- Ground rules: a first walk-through and not an audit, work with the scenario as given, decide on incomplete information – and share how your plan answers, never the names, numbers or customer details on it
- 09:00 on a month-end Monday: email and the meeting platform will not open – what does your plan say for the first fifteen minutes?
- 11:00: a key customer is waiting for a quote, a supplier cannot reach you and the decider is on leave
- 15:00: services start to return, late and duplicate emails arrive, and a caller offers to 'restore your mailbox'
- Each delegate answers from their own one-page plan; groups compare through polls and chat, and in breakout rooms where the group size allows
- Mark the gaps: the questions your plan could not answer and the things you could not find
The week after: review, fix the plan and your action list
- The same-day review: what worked, what did not and what we change, with an owner and a date for each action
- Updating and dating the one-page plan, who must agree it before it is used (your manager, IT, whoever owns continuity in your organisation), and where the printed and phone copies live
- Questions to raise with your IT team or provider: status alerts, offline copies of email and files, a second meeting and internet route, hidden dependencies
- Questions for the suppliers your critical tasks depend on: what is your fallback, and how will you reach us?
- Keeping the plan alive: a tabletop with your own team, one small drill a year and a contact list refreshed every quarter
- Personal action list: three things to do this week, the date your team repeats the exercise, and where to go for a fuller treatment
How it is delivered
Live online on Zoom (or Microsoft Teams), 2.5 to 3 hours – typically 09:00-12:00, or a time that suits the team. From 1 to 500 delegates. Electronic handouts are sent before the session: a PDF workbook, the one-page outage plan template, message templates for the holding notice, update and all-clear, and a one-page summary. Save or print them beforehand – a plan kept only online cannot be opened in an outage. The masterclass can run privately for one organisation on a date you choose, using your own contact lists and critical tasks, so every team finishes with a plan built on its real work.
What our clients say
★★★★★ 4.8 on Google from 790+ reviews · word-for-word quotes from signed letters of reference, from clients on this and/or related BOTI courses
“All training programmes were delivered in a highly professional manner, with effective coordination and strict adherence to our scheduling requirements. The facilitators demonstrated a commendable level of expertise, and the quality of delivery consistently met our expectations.”
“BOTi has consistently and expertly delivered quality training services in respect of our Soft Skills requirements. We feel confident in recommending BOTI as a training services provider par excellence.”
“They were very professional, and they never failed us at any point during the process. They have met our expectations with both trainings.”
Frequently asked questions
How many people can join?
Anything from one delegate to 500 in a single live session. Send a team's leader and deputy, or the whole team: people from the same team work on one shared plan. Small groups talk through each other's plans. Large groups use polls and chat, and every team still fills in a first version of its own plan and walks it through the tabletop exercise.
Do we get handouts?
Yes, all electronic and sent before the session: a PDF workbook, the one-page outage plan template, message templates and a one-page summary. Print the plan template if you can – the finished plan belongs on paper and on your phone as well as on the network.
Can we run it privately for our organisation?
Yes. Choose a date, and delegates work on your own contact lists and critical tasks. Delegates fill in their own team's names and numbers in the workbook, so no staff contact details need to be sent to us. Each team finishes with its own one-page plan in a common format.
Is this an IT disaster-recovery course?
No. It is for managers and teams, and it covers what people do while the tools are down: who decides, how you reach each other and your customers, and how critical work carries on by hand. Restoring systems and recovering data stays with your IT team or provider. Delegates leave with a short list of questions to raise with them.
What if the meeting platform is down on the day?
We move the session to the other platform – Microsoft Teams if Zoom is down, Zoom if Teams is down – or agree a new time with you. Give us a phone number for the organiser when you book, so that we can reach you without email. The handouts go out beforehand, so delegates already have the workbook and templates.
Is it accredited?
No. This masterclass is non-accredited, and each delegate is emailed a BOTI certificate of attendance. It builds a plan and good habits for a team; it does not certify a person or an organisation against any standard.
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