BC Plan Development
Developing a business continuity plan, or implementing a BCM response, is the point at which you can start bringing together the information you have obtained during the business impact analysis, risk assessment and strategy development stages into practical, useable documents.
The key to developing the plan is to keep it simple – quality not quantity.
Keep in mind that on the day it may not be you who is using the plan, so ensure it is written at an appropriate level and clearly shows exactly how to conduct an effective response to the an incident through to the recovery of key services and ultimately resumption of business as usual.
Business continuity plans should be appropriate to the organisation’s size and culture and can be used as an overarching vehicle for the business continuity policy, strategy, response hierarchy, contingency plans, etc., which when taken together ensure continuity of the organisation’s operations.
What information should be in a business continuity plan?
The plan should contain sufficient information to enable a worst case scenario to be managed and the key operations of the organisation to continue. Writing the plan at this level will also enable lesser incidents to be managed should they occur. Plans are most effective when tailored to the needs of the organisation, although the principal contents of a plan would include:
- The incident escalation process
- Clearly defined roles and responsibilities for managing incidents
- Emergency procedures for ensuring staff welfare, damage limitation, etc.
- The contingencies and strategies available to maintain operations
- Recovery priorities and resource requirements for critical activities
- Action lists detailing the activities required to manage the incident and maintain continuity of critical activities
If this does not sound simple, Teed can help put things into perspective ...
We can take all the information you have, review it and advise where there are gaps that could affect the organisation’s ability to recover effectively. If requested, we will bring together the information in an easy-to-use, clear and succinct business continuity plan.
To give you the peace of mind that your plan is fit for purpose, we can help by reviewing your existing plans against best practice, making appropriate changes on your behalf and then running an exercise to ensure that the plan is effective for managing your response and recovery in the event of an incident.