This blog reports reports the results of a recent survey we conducted to find out how often organisations test their Business Continuity Plans with a Business Continuity exercise. It also contains a checklist for running Business Continuity exercises effectively.
Although Business Continuity has been with us, many people still find the concept difficult to understand. And then there is a range of related terms, Business Impact Analysis, Organisational Resilience, Disaster Recovery, Crisis Management Plans etc. that add to the confusion, time to provide some clarity.
We have reviewed a number of Business Continuity Plans recently that have fallen at the first hurdle because they are based on imagined scenarios and lack the rigour of a systematic Business Impact Analysis. Developing scenarios for Business Continuity Plans is time consuming and can be a distraction the real purpose of the plan. There are no shortcuts to developing effective Business Continuity Plans. So what is the right approach?