The first and most difficult step to preparing a Business Continuity Plan is simply to start writing it. In the below guide I will explain in five simple steps -
How to write an effective Business Continuity Plan
Step 1
- Get the support of Top Management
- If you have this support and buy-in staff will see the Business Continuity Plan as something worthy of their time, and most importantly a document worth referring to in an emergency
Step 2
- Mirror your organisation’s existing structure
- Rather than having one giant plan that encompasses the entire organisation you should have multiple plans for each department/ function/ location
- Breaking the organisation down in this way makes writing the plan much more manageable
- You will need to choose a ‘lead’ from each department/ function/ location who you can work with
Step 3
- Work with the staff who will be implementing the plan
- There is a wealth of knowledge in your organisation – if a disaster happened today your staff would do their best to carry on
- The plan should be developed using existing procedures; the closer you stick to your organisation’s ‘normal’ procedures the more relevant your plan becomes
- The point of writing a Business Continuity Plan is to harness their knowledge, record it in one place, and analyse the results
Step 4
- Discuss the Plan
- When you have developed a set of individual plans, you can present them to your Director, Board or Management Committee for discussion
- You will be presenting a valuable set of documents showing how their managers intend on recovering what they perceive as the most important aspects of the business
- This will give your Top Management the opportunity to make changes in prioritisation of services/ products or procedures
Step 5
- Keep the plans updated
- Once you have developed this set of plans, review them annually or simply make changes as they occur
- This is particularly important following a disruption; take notes and record the process you followed for analysis, discussion, improvement and learning
If you follow the above five steps you will have a robust Business Continuity Plan for your business which harnesses the knowledge you already have while gaining the approval of Top Management.
For more information on Business Continuity Planning please visit www.bcpbuilder.com