[ITL] [5] [PD] Training-led BCM Implementation: Implementing the Business Continuity Plan

Overview of BCM-320 (Session 2)

Implementing the Business Continuity Plan

At this stage, you are about to attend the second BCM (Plan Development or PD) one-day onsite workshop organised in-house. This second 1/2 day BCM-320 onsite lesson or blended online 3-hour session two will be conducted after completing the Business Continuity Strategy (BCS) phase.

This article is the fifth part of the Training-led BCM Implementation series.  It supports an organisation's BCM Project Implementation by incorporating training and is supported by value-added professional review services to develop, implement and finalize its BCM program.

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 your organisation's risk environment and focus your plan on the most relevant disruption scenarios, 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. Afterwards, you select a strategy to help you recover your critical business functions in a disaster.

The Plan Development (PD) phase helps refocus the critical business functions on their high-level strategy, which is then approved by management and converted into implementable action steps to be taken before, during, and after a disaster occurs.

The process of conducting PD as part of the Training-led BCM Implementation series 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 is to introduce participants to the fundamental concepts before the onsite or online workshop.

3. Participants are strongly encouraged to read the short articles. This will help you optimize your time at the PD workshop by giving you a basic understanding of "What is BC Plan Development?" before you start the workshop.

What should participants do "Before" the 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 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 the workshop is a 1-time group event.  Hence, participants must lock this event in their calendars. No repeat workshop will be conducted for absent participants.

2.  Facilitated Workshop

An [Online or Onsite] workshop is conducted to guide business unit BCM coordinators in using the strategies developed in the BC Strategy phase and filling in the details of how these strategies might be implemented in the organization.

Templates are used to guide the plan's documentation.

What should participants do "After" the 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 PD template submission by uploading it 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 must also 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.

Value-Adding Service

Access to the eLearning module is subject to BCM Institute's agreement with the in-house organization: 

3. Consultation with Project Team Leader [Online]

After the 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.

Optional: The organisation BCM coordinator will receive a complimentary one-hour consultation session with the workshop facilitator to review the compiled templates/ report. This session is subject to the initial conditions and class size as agreed upon at the start of the project.

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

1. Get the "Corporate Level" BC Plan template from the facilitator. These are the overarching two parts of the organisation's BC Plan: Part A and Part B.
2. Get all BU BCM Coordinators to submit their completed BC Plan template after attending the instructor's session. The BU BCM Coordinators are expected to edit their business unit or BU's BC Plan template after the workshop session.
3. Send comments via email to the designated facilitator before the consultation session.
4. Attend the consultation session at the appointed time (on Zoom)
5. Complied with all the BU templates from all BUs and wrote a cover sheet to management with the complied Corporate level BC Plan and all BU Plans referred to as all Part C.
   
   

4.  BC Plan Presentation (Optional)

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

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 project's development phase. The next step is to test and exercise the plan.

The PD phase deliverable 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.

If you are attending a public 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 ready to attend the next one-day session on the "Testing and Exercising" workshop during the next module.

Training-led BCM Implementation Roadmap