PD 1: Plan Development: Where Do We Start?

Plan Development in the BCM Planning Methodology

5_Plan Development-1 Before arriving at this phase you would have completed four earlier phases of the BCM Planning Methodology.

These would have enabled you to identify all the resources required to operate the critical business processes and determine the best strategy to speedily and efficiently recover your business in the event of a crisis. You are now ready to document a formal BC Plan.

By using a word processing software or specialized planning software, you can complete the major headings of each plan section with information from the Business Impact Analysis (BIA) and the Business Continuity Strategy reports. This blog is intended to guide you to document and expand on the detailed procedures for each BC plan section.

The Organization BCM Coordinator, Business Units (BU) BCM Coordinators and staff members are generally the best people to carry out detailed fact finding and data collection because of their knowledge of the business and their involvement in the day-to-day operations. It is essential that they are involved in the development of the BC Plan, as they will be the ones implementing the BC Plan if disaster strikes. Their participation in the planning and decision making process will heighten their commitment to the plan.

Without this, the BC Plan, ultimately, cannot succeed. Each BC Plan is unique and must be:

Tailored to the organization’s requirement
Flexible to allow additions and modifications

The BC Plan should minimize dependency on specific individuals and outside entities.

Why Read This Plan Development Blog [Book] Series?

The objective in the plan development phase is to provide specialist knowledge with the aim to:

Guide the reader in the formulation of the BC Plan and to ensure that important aspects are not overlooked
Manage the whole plan development activity as a project and ensure that the BC Plan is produced in a timely and economic fashion
Manage the quality of the BC Plan as it emerges
Engage key personnel in this phase of the BCM planning process

This book provides the principles and methodologies for preparing effective and detailed BC Plans. It includes a practical how-to-do-it template (refer to Template section of book) to assist those without previous BC planning (BCP) experience. The author uses his experience to help the reader develop a corporate-specific BC Plan and document the plan for specific business units (BU) and corporate-level use.

Throughout the entire book, this icon is used to indicate comments, reflections and personal views of the author, which will serve as useful tips for readers.

Learning Objectives

You will understand and learn how to:

Define the objectives of producing a structured BC Plan.
Determine the scope of the BC Plan document.
Identify the resources required for completing the BC Plan.
Finalize BC Plan production time scale.
Produce the BC Plan document by:
- Drafting each stage of the BC Plan.
- Identifying the common pitfalls in completing the BC Plan.
- Reviewing the BC Plan.
- Finalizing the BC Plan.
- Presenting the BC Plan to the Executive Management and obtaining approval.
- Arranging training on the usage of the model BC Plan template (of which a sample templates can be found as Corporate and Business Unit plan) for BU BCM Coordinators.

The following questions will be addressed:

What constitutes the plan development phase?
What does plan development entail?
What are the usual pitfalls in the BC Plan structure – the process, the content or the form?
How can the Organization BCM Coordinator formulate the BC Plan without overlooking important aspects?
How can each section of the BC Plan document be organized and linked?
How can the whole activity be project managed to ensure that the BC Plan is produced in a timely and economic fashion?
What is the recovery organization and how is it organized?
How can the Organization BCM Coordinator manage the quality of the BC Plan as it emerges?
What is the professional standard that a practitioner must attain when developing and implementing a BC Plan?

As this book focuses on developing a BC Plan, it does not address the area of technological and duplication storage strategies. This will be dealt with in the IT DRP book, “A Manager’s Guide to Implement Your IT Disaster Recovery Plan”.

Reference

Goh, M. H. (2021). Implementing Your Business Continuity Plan. Business Continuity Management Planning Series (3rd ed.). Singapore: GMH Pte Ltd.

Extracted from "Chapter 1: Overview"

More Information About Blended Learning BCM-5000 [BL-B-5]

To know more about our blended learning program and when the next course is scheduled, feel free to contact our friendly course consultant colleagues via sales.ap@bcm-institute.org. They are the BL-B-3 Blended Learning BCM-300 ISO22301 BCMS Implementer and the BL-B-5 Blended Learning BCM-5000 ISO22301 BCMS Expert Implementer.