Last night I watched professional musicians deal with unexpected failure in front of a crowd of thousands. If your store fails can you handle it as well as they did?
A friend invited me to go to the local Rock the Vote concert which sounded like fun. It was unusually cold for October and waiting in line for the super extensive metal detector sweep would have been uncomfortable except for the in-line entertainment. The girl in front of us was teetering from side to side, flirting with everyone who wasn't her boyfriend and generally serving as a lesson on why you don't ever want to drink beyond your limits. Surprisingly the metal detector guy could care less about how drunk she was as long as she wasn't hiding a 9mm in her coat.
The show was a collection of short performances by Nora Jones, Jack Johnson, Sheryl Crow and the Beastie Boys. Each performer came out for a short set and then played a few songs together. It was the ensemble performances that had unexpected failures.
One minute into a Johnny Cash song the microphone started to crackle and pop for Nora Jone's Banjo player. You couldn't miss it from the audience but I was interested to see how everyone on stage handled it.
First, while I know that everyone on stage noticed, there was nothing more than a short glance without a single blip in the other performances.
Second, a roadie was on stage in 2 seconds flat and looking over the connections.
Third, while the roadie was working everyone else carried on with the show.
Fourth, when the roadie couldn't determine the cause quickly the banjo player grabbed her backup guitar and joined in as though she had meant to be playing the guitar all along.
If one part of your operations fail do the other parts continue on without it? If your ship manager calls in sick during your busiest week who takes over? Can you operate without that person?
When something fails do you have a "roadie" waiting just off stage to immediately review the problem? Does your hosting company have 24 hours support? If the problem is a software issue who's on call and guaranteed to be available?
If your "roadie" can't fix the problem on the fly do you have a backup system in place? What happens if UPS goes offline? How do you determine shipping prices?
Have you tested your backup plans when you don't need them? My hosting company routinely "pulls the plug" on outside power to verify that the backup power supply is working as expected? Test your backup plans before you need them.