business continuity:
plan development

On this page you can find articles, checklists and sample plans, resources that will assist in developing the business continuity plan. For risk assessment information, click here

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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Creating a global recovery program: with limited resources
A case study.
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•Type: Link •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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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
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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
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Estimating the "impact value" of a crisis
What would be the effect of a worst case scenario if it occurred at your work facility? It is important to try and calculate the impact value of a crisis because that will tell you how damaging a critical incident will be if there is no crisis intervention
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•Type: Link •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Fact Sheet on Business Continuity Management
Useful overview by SPRING Singapore, the region's standards agency.
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•Type: Article •Region: World •Level: Basic
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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
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‘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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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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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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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
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London Prepared Businesses Continuity Advice
Assessment checklist of what needs to be considered and a five-step guide to plan development.
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•Type: Link •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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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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NFPA 1600 Standard on Disaster/Emergency Management and Business Continuity Programs 2004 edition
A comprehensive business continuity planning standard developed by the US National Fire Protection Association.
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Performing The Business Impact Analysis
A BIA checklist (Word document)
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Risk and resource checklist
Word document
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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
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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
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BUSINESS CONTINUITY PLAN SAMPLES

General plan samples for download
Business continuity plan document and related support material
•Type: PDF•Region: Worldwide•Level: Advanced
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Incident management plan
•Type: PDF•Region: Worldwide•Level: Advanced
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