Map Critical Dependencies
Identify single points of failure that could stop you cold.
What this is for
Making visible the people, systems, customers, suppliers, and processes your business relies on—so you can reduce vulnerability before an unexpected break causes major disruption.
What you get
- A visual or tabular dependency map
- Ranked single points of failure by risk and impact
- Buffering or redundancy options for top exposures
- Early-warning signals tied to critical links
Core logic
Every business has hidden linchpins. When one fails—key customer churns, a supplier stalls, a tool breaks, or a decision bottlenecks—everything downstream slows or stops. By systematically listing dependencies, assessing how concentrated and replaceable they are, and adding redundancy or contingency, you turn fragile areas into resilient ones.
Step-by-step
- Inventory dependencies
- Customers: top revenue sources, concentration risk
- Suppliers/vendors: single-source materials, critical services
- People: knowledge holders, decision owners, key operators
- Systems/tools: platforms your operations or revenue run on
- Channels: acquisition or distribution reliance
- Processes: non-documented or manual workflows
Categories to cover:
- Assess each dependency
- Impact if lost: revenue, operations, reputation hit
- Likelihood of failure: fragility, lack of backup, external volatility
- Replaceability: how quickly can you recover or swap in an alternative?
For every item, evaluate:
- Rank failure points
Combine impact × likelihood to surface highest-risk single points of failure.
- Define mitigation actions
- Redundancy: alternate suppliers, cross-trained people, backup tools
- Documentation: reduce knowledge hoarding by codifying critical processes
- Contracts / commitments: lock in key customers or vendors with terms
- Automated alerts: monitor health of systems, concentration drift, engagement drop
- Failover plans: clear “if X breaks, do Y” playbooks
Options include:
- Assign owners & build resilience
Make someone accountable for each top dependency’s health and contingency readiness.
- Review periodically
Dependencies shift with growth—re-run the map quarterly or after major changes (new hires, vendor shifts, customer roster changes).
Decision thresholds / guardrails
- Single dependency with high impact and low replaceability → Immediate priority: add buffer or build an alternative.
- No documented fallback for a critical person or system → Create and test a failover plan.
- Concentration creeping up (e.g., one customer, channel, or tool >X%) → Trigger diversification actions.
- Dependency health checks failing silently → Surface with monitoring and escalate before full failure.
Examples
- SaaS: Core infrastructure runs on one third-party API—dependency map flags risk. Mitigation: build graceful degradation and alternative data sources.
- Consulting firm: One senior partner owns most client relationships—action: document key account histories and cross-introduce associates.
- E-commerce: 70% of traffic from a single ad channel—response: test and scale secondary channels to reduce single-source risk.
Thinking checks
- What are the top 5 single points of failure right now?
- For each, do you have a tested fallback or buffer?
- Who owns the health of those dependencies?
- Has anything shifted recently that introduced a new hidden linchpin?
What to track (minimum)
- Dependency risk scorecard (impact × likelihood × replaceability)
- Status of mitigation actions (redundancy, documentation, contracts)
- Concentration metrics (customers, channels, tools)
- Failover readiness (plans created and tested)