business continuity: plan development

On this page you can find articles, checklists and resources that will assist in developing business continuity plans.

GENERAL DOCUMENTS

A business continuity checklist
MegaPath has developed a shortlist of common items that those developing their first business continuity plan should consider.
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•Type: Article •Region: USWorld •Level: Basic

A business continuity management primer
Helmut Mair offers advice to those faced with developing their first business continuity plan.
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•Type: Article •Region: Australia/World •Level: Basic

Beware of stereotypes…
When developing an effective plan, input is needed from just about everyone. Be careful not to miss important contributions through stereotyping people.
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•Type: Article •Region: USWorld •Level: Basic

Branding for value in business continuity program development
What is your approach when you are hired by a company and given a blank piece of paper to develop a business continuity program? By Lawrence Robert, CBCP, CBRM, CBCLA.
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•Type: Article •Region: US/Worldwide •Level: Advanced

Business continuity and disaster recovery: making a start
Dr. Jim Kennedy provides some helpful thoughts for those new to the profession.
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•Type: Article •Region: USWorld •Level: Basic

Business continuity plan development
Don’t use ‘scenario-based’ planning and don’t let the IT-tail wag the business continuity dog, says Chris Bakowski.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic

Business continuity plan development explored
You can’t just follow a recipe book says Kathleen Lucey, FBCI.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Advanced

Business continuity planning for small businesses
Just starting your first business continuity plan? Cole Seger provides some pointers..
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic

Business continuity planning - how long should it take?
About three months and never more than six, says Mel Gosling.
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•Type: Article •Region: UK/Worldwide •Level: Basic

Business continuity on a limited budget
David Honour asks whether the priority should be given to crisis management or plan development when funds are limited.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic

Calculating acceptable downtime
John Robinson discusses the above subject and using the concept of maximum tolerable period of disruption as a tool.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Advanced

Case study: Britvic
Maximising resilience in the world of soft drink production: the Britvic continuity programme.
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•Type: Article •Region: UK/Worldwide •Level: Basic

Case study: Implementing business continuity in the upstream and midstream energy sector (petrochemicals and refineries)
Business continuity planning in industrial sectors has a different emphasis than in service industries. Vincent Tombros explains.
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•Type: Article •Region: M.East/Worldwide •Level: Advanced

Creating effective business continuity plans
Barry Varley, CEO of independent testing consultancy Acutest, highlights the two main problems that lead to business continuity plans failing.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic

Developing business continuity management within a local authority
Andy Pepper, senior emergency management officer, explains how Cardiff Council has set about developing BC plans to meet the requirements of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic

FFIEC publishes updated business continuity planning guidance
New version of the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council’s ‘Business Continuity Planning Booklet’ available.
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•Type: Article •Region: US •Level: Various

‘Futureproofing’ - the process of active analysis
Integrated business continuity should be based on the concept of ‘graceful degradation’ and ‘agile restoration’, says Geary W. Sikich.
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•Type: Article •Region: World •Level: Advanced

Hazard identification and Business Impact Analysis
John Salter provides a paper which leads planners through the BIA process.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Advanced

How to build the perfect business continuity management soufflé...
Chris Bakowski offers a recipe for business continuity success.
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•Type: Article • Region: Australia/World •Level: Basic

How to determine what are mission critical organisational activities
Garry Poole explains the concept of ‘Activity Analysis’.
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•Type: Article •Region: World •Level: Basic

How to prioritise the BCP effort with recovery timeframe objectives
RTOs can and should be used to prioritise the entire planning process says Doug Kavanagh.
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•Type: Article •Region: World •Level: Basic

Human resources: covering all the bases
A human resources checklist for enterprise-wide business continuity plans.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Advanced

IBHS launches business continuity planning tool to assist US small businesses
The US Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS) has announced the release of OFB-EZ: a new, free, business continuity planning tool.
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•Type: Article •Region: US •Level: Basic

Lessons from the frontline
Dr. Barbara Hillenbrand had her business continuity skills put to the test in the most extreme way; the plans she worked on were invoked during the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. In this article Barbara shares her thinking on how to develop a good business continuity plan.
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•Type: Article •Region: US/World •Level: Basic

Making the most of the BIA
Is the return on your BIA investment offset by the value of the results? James Mitchell looks at how to make sure it is.
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•Type: Article •Region: World •Level: Basic

Maximum Tolerable Period of Disruption (MTPOD)
What is it, where did it come from and why is it important to your organization?
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•Type: Article •Region: World •Level: Basic

Maximum Tolerable Period of Disruption (MTPOD): BSI committee response
Further to an article published recently by Continuity Central, Malcolm Cornish provides an update on the latest thinking on MTPOD.
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•Type: Article •Region: World •Level: Advanced

One business continuity plan or many minis?
What type of business continuity plans does an organization need? One all-inclusive plan? Many small, functional unit plans? John Glenn explores.
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•Type: Article •Region: US/World •Level: Basic

Online Business Continuity Planning Starter Kit launched
Florida’s Division of Emergency Management has developed ‘Starting Point’, a tool to help local businesses commence the business continuity planning process.
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•Type: Article •Region: US •Level: Basic

Preparing a power failure response strategy
Power outages are one of the most common causes of business disruption and a good response strategy requires much thought and planning. In this article Dr. Jim Kennedy explains the steps that should be taken.
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•Type: Article •Region: US/World •Level: Advanced

Planning for people
Peter Barnes, FBCI, argues that too few business continuity plans consider the ‘human variables’ and offers some guidance as to the issues to be addressed.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic

RTO, MTPD and putting the cart before the horse
How to calculate, rather than guess, your recovery time objectives: by Rainer Hübert, MBCI..
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•Type: Article •Region: World •Level: Advanced

Six Sigma and business continuity
Jack Freson, Certified Black Belt in Six Sigma, explains how the methodology can be helpful in business continuity management.
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•Type: Article •Region: US •Level: Basic

Struggling to plan?
Rob Prinzo offers five strategic steps which will help business continuity managers become more effective planners.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic

Successful business continuity programs: be strategic from the start
A business continuity program should start with a well presented business case and a clear roadmap. Mark Carey explains.
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•Type: Article •Region: World •Level: Basic

The business continuity policy statement
Do you need a policy statement? And what does a good one look like?
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic

The features of good planning
In this article John Salter explores the factors that influence good contingency planning and provides a framework to follow to develop an effective ‘emergency risk management framework'.
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•Type: Article •Region: World •Level: Advanced

The five stages of pandemic response planning
Charlie Straker provides a practical checklist to help business continuity managers develop pandemic response plans.
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•Type: Article •Region: UK/Worldwide •Level: Basic

The key importance of understanding Recovery Point Objectives
Garry Poole explains why RPOs are a vital tool for persuading senior management to invest in a business continuity programme.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic

Ten easy ways to improve your business continuity plan
Kevin Howells has audited and reviewed hundreds of BC and DR plans. Here he summarises the errors most frequently found during this process.
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•Type: Article •Region: World •Level: Advanced

Ten things that indicate top management support for business continuity
A checklist to consider if a proposed business continuity management project would be a success based on the support offered by top management. By Sandesh Sheth.
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•Type: Article •Region: US/Worldwide •Level: Basic

The use of templates in business continuity planning
Brian Zawada explores the pros and cons of template use and provides some helpful tips.
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•Type: Article •Region: US/Worldwide •Level: Basic

What to avoid...
The ten most common mistakes people make when writing business continuity plans. By Charlie Maclean-Bristol.
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•Type: Article •Region: UK/Worldwide •Level: Basic

When planning, put people first…
Keith Pursall argues that paying more attention to the people who business continuity plans are aimed at will produce plans which are more effective in a crisis.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic

When the writing’s on the wall…
How can you tell when a business continuity plan is doomed before it is even written? John Glenn highlights a couple of tell-tale signs.
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•Type: Article •Region: US/World •Level: Basic

Where do I start in business continuity?
Taking the first few steps towards a business continuity management approach can seem a very daunting task. Ian Dunlop provides some useful advice.
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•Type: Article •Region: UK/Worldwide •Level: Basic

BUSINESS CONTINUITY CHECKLISTS, TEMPLATES and TOOLS

A major pandemic checklist and assessment matrix
What factors should be considered when developing a business continuity plan for pandemic scenarios? Ian Rogers offers some useful checklist style advice.
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•Type: Article • Region: Worldwide • Level: Advanced

Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery Management checklist
A checklist to use when developing a BC plan. Word document.
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•Type: Link •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic

Business continuity and disaster recovery checklist for small business owners
A new resource from Capital One.
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•Type: Article •Region: North America •Level: Basic

Business Continuity Maturity Model
Version 1.2 introduces a methodology that can be used by companies to perform self-assessments.
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•Type: News article •Region: N.America/Worldwide •Level: Advanced

Business impact assessment and damage reporting for effective crisis management
This practical paper outlines an approach to integrating business impact assessment into crisis management in order to strengthen the quality of information based decision making.
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•Type: Article • Region: Worldwide • Level: Advanced

Business Link business continuity guidance
Overview and links to useful documents and templates, published by the UK government's Business Link network.
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•Type: Link •Region: UK •Level: Basic

Checklist criteria for business recovery
FEMA document. According to the introduction:
The intent of this checklist is to provide a means of creating a business recovery manual for your business. The manual would be used by you in the event that you had to execute a recovery of you business due to a natural or man-made disaster. This checklist can be used by manufacturers, corporate offices, retailers, utilities or any organisation where a sizeable number of people work or gather.
If you already have a plan, use this checklist as a resource to apply business controls to the plan, if needed, or to assess the overall readiness and maintenance of your plan documentation.
The checklist is divided into four sections:
* LEVEL 1: Executive Awareness/Authority
* LEVEL 2: Plan Development and Documentation
* LEVEL 3: Management and Recovery Team Assessment and Evaluation for Effectiveness
* LEVEL 4: Management and Recovery Team Assessment of Readiness and Plan Maintenance
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•Type: Link •Region: Worldwide •Level: Advanced

Interactive business continuity launch pad
Comprehensive guide to business continuity planning. Contains a set of dozens of webpages designed to help you plot the best way forward in the creation of an appropriate disaster recovery and business continuity plan.
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•Type: Link •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic

NASD Small Firm Template for a business continuity plan
Aimed at helping smaller financial sector firms develop business continuity plans, but useful for companies in other sectors too.
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•Type: Link •Region: Worldwide •Level: Advanced

Performing The Business Impact Analysis
A BIA checklist (Word document)
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•Type: Link •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic

Risk and resource checklist
Word document
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•Type: Link •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic

Risk register and assessment tool for download
Emergency Preparedness Capacity Builders has provided an Excel-based Risk register and assessment tool for free download and use by Continuity Central readers.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Advanced

BUSINESS CONTINUITY INSTITUTE RESOURCES

Good Practice in Business Continuity Management guidelines
Detailed business continuity advice.
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DISASTER RECOVERY JOURNAL RESOURCES

The DRJ offers a useful library of plan development resources including the following:
* The Contingency Planner
* Legal necessity
* So you're the company's new contingency planner
* Business continuity planning model (Provided by DRI)
* BC plan templates and outlines
* Guidance notes and checklists for developing recovery teams
•Type: Link •Region: Worldwide •Level: Various