[HRDC] [5] [PD] BCM Training and Project: Implementing the Business Continuity Plan

Overview

At this stage, you are about to attend the second HRD Corp claimable BCM workshop organised in-house. This 1/2 day session or WSQ-BCM-320 Session 2 can be conducted after the completion of the Business Continuity Strategy phase.

This article is the fifth part of the "HRD Corp Claimable BCM Training with Project Implementation" series.   It supports an organisation in its BCM Project Implementation by incorporating training and is supported by value-added consulting services to develop, implement and finalize its BCM program for an organisation.

Developing the business continuity (BC) plan is one of the highlights of the BC planning project. To reach this point, you have had to understand the risk environment your organization is in, and focus your plan on disruption scenarios that are most relevant, e.g., denial of access to your office.

You also had to identify your critical business functions (CBFs), how quickly they needed to be recovered, and what resources (e.g. IT systems) were necessary for recovery. Following that, you selected a strategy to help you recover your critical business functions in the event of a disaster.

The Plan Development (PD) phase help re-focus the critical business functions on its high-level strategy for approval by management and then converting them into implementable action steps to be taken before, during and after a disaster occurs.

The process of conducting PD in an HRD Corp Funded BCM Project is as follows:

1. Supplementary Readings

1. Before the start of the workshop, participants will receive emails containing bite-size information (in the form of blogs) on the concepts and implementation of the business continuity strategies.

2. The purpose of doing so is to introduce participants to the key concepts ahead of the coming online workshop.

3. Participants are strongly encouraged to read the short articles and this will help you as a participant to optimize your time at the PD workshop by having a basic understanding of "what is BC Plan Development?" before you start the workshop.

What participants should do before the Online Workshop?

Participants are encouraged to:

1. Read through the supplementary material and try to write down any questions they may have on PD.
2. Complete the E-Learning module "Plan Development"
3. Download the "BC Plan template from the eCampus LMS Portal
4. Complete the BC Plan templates with the help of the "Guidance Notes" before attending the online workshop

It is important to note that because the workshop is a 1-time group event.  Hence, it is important that participants lock this event in their calendars. No repeat workshop will be conducted for absent participants and there is a possibility that HRD Corp will not approve the course subsidy if the participant is absent.

2.  Workshop [Online]

The workshop is conducted to guide business unit BCM coordinators to use the strategies developed in the BC Strategy phase and fill in the details for how these strategies might be implemented in the organization.

Templates are used to guide the documentation of the plan.

What should participants do after the online workshop?

Participants are encouraged to:

1. Complete their PD templates with their BU information based on the learning after the online workshop, if possible, in consultation with the head of the business unit
2. Review of the content of submission via email by the Facilitator as an assignment
3. Submit the finalized "reviewed" business unit or BU's PD template submission via upload to BCM Institute's eCampus portal
4. Sent all submitted PD from all the BUs to the Organisation BCM Coordinator for final reporting

Be prepared for a fair amount of data collection in this phase, e.g., contact numbers and location of alternate sites. Recovery procedures will also need to be developed and documented in the templates provided.

The Organisation BCM Coordinator will process the PD templates from all departments and compile them into a final plan for submission to senior management.

3.  Consultation [Online]

After the online workshop, participants will have a designated period to complete and submit the templates to their appointed BCM project manager or Organisation BCM Coordinator, who will consolidate the templates and send the first draft of the report to the facilitator.

A complimentary 1-hour consultation session will be arranged for Organisation BCM Coordinator to go through the compiled templates/ report with the consultant.  

What Preparation does the Organisation BCM Coordinator need to do prior to the consultation session:

1. Get the "RAR report to management" template from the facilitator.  This is optional.
2. Get all BU BCM Coordinators to submit their completed RAR template after attending the instructor's online session. The BU BCM Coordinators are expected to make edits to their business unit or BU's RAR template after the online workshop session.
3. Send comments via email to the designated facilitator, prior to the consultation session
4. Attend the consultation session at the appointed time (on Zoom)
5. Process the templates from all BU and write a report for submission to the organisation's management.
6. Re-edit the compiled RAR report and prepare to present the revised RAR report for management presentation.
   
   

4.  BC Plan Presentation

A BC Plan Presentation will be conducted to senior management to update them on the progress of the project and present a summary of the corporate plan to them.

What senior management should do:

1. Review the corporate BC plan summary
2. Endorse the corporate BC plan

This presentation marks the end of the development phase of the project. The next step is to test and exercise the plan.

The deliverable of the PD phase comprises a corporate plan component (what the organisation as a whole would do in a disaster) and a business unit plan component that focuses on what individual business units would do. Only the corporate plan component would be presented to senior management.

5.  Public HRD Corp Claimable Course

If you are attending a public WSQ course, this course is similar to the morning session for the BCM-320 (Course code) and it is titled "Developing Business Continuity Strategies and Plans" The "Plan Development" form session 2 of the BCM-320 course content.

Once this session is completed, you are now ready to attend the next one-day session on the "Testing and Exercising" workshop to be held during the next module.

Training-led BCM Implementation Roadmap