Business Continuity Management Program Maintenance Objectives
Once you build your business continuity plan, it is critical to keep the plan up to date. To do this, you should regularly exercise, audit and maintain your plan.
Experience has repeatedly shown that a regular testing and training program is imperative for successful recovery and confidence building for the BCM teams, possibly help enable the RTO to be shortened. Testing is the vehicle that turns the Business Recovery Plan from a theoretical manual into a real, fit for purpose document which must be kept “alive”.
Exercise your plan
Your company has taken the required steps to have a business continuity plan in place. But if you do not regularly test that plan, you could be at risk during an actual emergency, or crisis.
Audit your plan
Set aside time to review your plan. You should examine any disaster recovery actions taken, and ensure the results from all scheduled tests have been addressed. Communicate those test results to appropriate stake holders and then compare your plan to other organizations to determine if your company meets industry standards.
Maintain your plan
Once your business continuity plan is in place, take care to keep it current. All key players should be properly educated and able to confidently execute the plan at any moment
Objectives for the Plan Maintenance are:
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Support change management of plan content (before an event, and during an event).
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Define the update schedule to ensure the plans are up to date.
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Identify and resolve issues or potential improvements in the plan.
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Update contact names, numbers, and email addresses of champions and coordinators.
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Part of the maintenance cycle is letting audit, and perhaps the regulators, and ERM know
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Bench mark your recovery documents against best practices
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Report to management regarding the readiness of the BC program.
Ensure all plans are up to date, published in the BC Repository, and remain effective for responding to potential and actual business interruption events.
