In early January 2022, as speculation about an impending Russian attack on Ukraine swirled, the leaders of Ralabs, a Lviv-based software-development company, started working on a business continuity plan, or BCP. They outlined various scenarios, each representing a different level of Russian action and Ukrainian response. They monitored the news to better understand the challenges the company and its employees might confront and talked nonstop to customers to gauge their nervousness about doing business in Ukraine.
On February 24, 2022, Russia did invade Ukraine, and the company’s advance planning paid off. Its leaders had already relocated some employees, allocated budget for BCP-related activities, developed HR policies for a range of emergency situations, and conducted a number of educational programs to help employees feel prepared, on topics ranging from managing in a crisis to being drafted into the army. As a result, just a few weeks after the invasion Ralabs was back to 90% of typical performance, which has more or less continued if not improved over the past year. The lessons it learned—around the importance of scenario planning, flexibility, decisive decision-making, and managing customers and employees through uncertainty—may be helpful both to other Ukrainian organizations during this war and to leaders around the world faced with navigating any crisis.
