Maintaining Your Business Continuity Program -
Maintain your business continuity programme actively. Ensure it is up-to-date and continues to reflect the responsibilities, objectives, and functions of your organisation.
Reasons to modify your programme may include:
- Alterations in your organisation, e.g. a shift in organisational structure
- Introduction of new functions, or alterations to existing functions, e.g. a change in how a function is delivered
- Adjustments to the requirements that support your functions, e.g. the introduction of a new IT system
- Insights from an exercise or incident
- Discoveries from an assessment or review.
Programme Review
Reviews enable you to assess your policy, plans, and processes to confirm they are still suitable and effective, and to spot areas for improvement. Examples of reviews include:
- Audit
- Self-assessment
- Quality assurance activities
- Supplier performance review
- Management review
- Evaluation of performance against business continuity roles and responsibilities.
Your report from the review process should concentrate on increasing resilience.
Integration
Business continuity isn’t just a plan—it’s a process. By taking practical steps and proactively minimizing the impacts of any disruption, regardless of cause, you can become more resilient.
Integrating your programme with other teams such as security, health and safety, emergency management, information management, and risk management is key to success. By doing so, you’ll bolster the organisation’s resilience.
For example, your business continuity programme can identify potential threats and proactive security measures. Additionally, risk management principles can be employed to assess risks of disruption to critical functions.
Training
Training, education, and awareness are key components to successful business continuity processes. Make them a regular part of your business practice and company culture.
Choose response team members with the right skills and competencies, and provide them with appropriate training. Additionally, select and train back-up personnel for these essential roles. When possible, assign people with critical roles to positions that do not conflict with other responsibilities.