Context in 2026
What does the word “context” mean?
Before taking a stab at a definition, here’s a short story.
Kevin, a 30-something friend who lives in Las Vegas, needed to purchase a vehicle. He stopped into a dealership, walked around the dealer’s lot looking at a few vehicles and was approached by a salesperson.
Salesperson: “Hi, my name is John. Can I help you with anything or answer any questions for you.”
Kevin: “Yes, I’m looking to purchase a vehicle.”
Let’s pause the story for a moment and ask ourselves a question…
Does the salesperson have the information necessary to recommend an appropriate vehicle for Kevin? I suppose he could guess, perhaps by looking at Kevin and by making a few assumptions based what he drove to the lot, his age, what he was wearing, etc. But instead, the salesperson asked a question.
Salesperson: “Are you looking for a new or used vehicle?”
Kevin: “It doesn’t matter to me really, I’m open to whatever.”
In the mind of the salesperson, that interaction really didn’t help.
Salesperson: “What are you planning to use the vehicle for – work or personal?”
Kevin: “Day-to-day driving really.”
The salesperson was tempted to jump into a budget question, but he was better trained than that.
Salesperson: “OK, will this be just you in the car, or will there be others? Or do you need space to move anything larger perhaps?”
Kevin: “I actually have three younger kids so I do need something a little larger.”
Now we’re getting somewhere…
Salesperson: “Just out of curiosity, what was your favorite car you’ve ever drive?”
Kevin (smiling): “About five years ago, before our second child, I had a BMW X1. I loved that car. The performance, features, all of it. But we grew out of it.”
Now the salesperson was on to something. Kevin had money, craved performance and features but needed space for his decent-sized family.
Salesperson: “Do you ever take your family camping or go on long road trips?”
Kevin (laughing): “No, our version of camping is a Courtyard Marriott. But we’re actually moving to Illinois in three months, not really looking forward to those cold winters.”
Imagine if the salesperson didn’t ask these questions. Would he have recommended a two-seat sportscar, a used Honda Civic, or even a motorcycle? I hope not, because he didn’t have the context to make those recommendation.
Instead, he discovered Kevin needed space for at least four people, he had some money, he wasn’t planning to be in the Las Vegas area for long, and he likely needed a vehicle with all-weather driving capability because of the snow in Illinois.
Had the sales person not asked questions to determine scope and context, he likely wouldn’t have gotten the sale, or he could have sold the wrong car or possibly even undersold Kevin missing out on a higher commission.
The work we do in risk and resilience is no different.
Unfortunately, we often act without fully understanding context.
If you look at the title of Clause 4 of ISO 22301, you will see “Context of the Organization”. It’s the most overlooked and often misunderstood of the standard’s content. Yet it’s incredibly important.
When we scope our resilience work, do we treat all parts of the organization the same? Do we guess at prioritization? Do we make such decisions in a vacuum without consulting others? Do we ignore the threat landscape? Is budget and resource availability irrelevant?
The answers to each question is NO.
We work to align our work to reality and expectations.
That’s context.
In our next article, we’re going to summarize our views on the key elements of context when it comes to resilience and why this concept is more important now than ever.