What is Plan Development?

What is Plan Development? [PD2]

This chapter gives an overview of the entire plan development process. It includes the implementation stages with the detailed tasks and expected deliverables.

1. Definition

According to BCMPedia, Plan Development is a phase within the BCM planning methodology. It is for determining the procedures for notifying the right people and assessing the operational impact. It is also for developing specific steps to minimize the risk of an outage, and for restoring normal operations after the outage. The output from this step is the BC Plan or DR Plan.

2. Tasks

The tasks to complete in the plan development phase include:

Designing and the development of the model BC Plan documentation.
Determining the setup of the functional responsibilities of the recovery teams.
The identification of members for each recovery team.
The development of specific procedures for each recovery team.
Training staff on the use of BC specialized software and (if necessary) BC Plan templates.
Reviewing and editing (based on an agreed structure) the plans submitted by the business units to ensure that the documents are consistent, comprehensive and complete.

3. What Does Plan Development Entail?

In summary, the entire process involves the following stages:

Determination of the organization of the BC Plan document

Designing and developing the BC Plan template.
Determining the recovery organization.

Conducting a BC Plan writing workshop to guide plan writers

Completion of plan template by individual BU BCM Coordinators.

Finalization of the BC Plan production

Validation by BU BCM Coordinators and Heads of Business Units of the content of plans for completeness and coverage.
The sign-off by heads of respective business units.

4. Key Elements of Plan Development Phase

Understanding and Defining the Objectives

While there are a number of ways to manage a crisis, the order of priority outlined in the model plan templates is considered the most appropriate to meet your business needs.
There is therefore a need for the Organization BCM Coordinator to understand and define the objectives for producing a structured plan and the professional expectation for implementing the BC Plan.

Determining the Scope

It is important to clearly define the scope of the plan document that is produced for recovering in a crisis, so that time and energy are not wasted in recovering non-critical items.

Identifying the Resources Required

To ensure that the plan document is completed within the shortest possible time, it is necessary to confirm that all the necessary resources will be made available.

Develop Model BC Plan Template

The main components of a typical BC Plan are:

Reduce

Reduction and mitigation.

Respond

Immediate response steps.

Recover

Restoration of time-sensitive critical business functions.

Resume

Resumption of time-sensitive critical functions with expanded recovery operations.

Restore

Restoration of damaged or destroyed infrastructure.

Return

Return to normal.

The Organization BCM Coordinator will design the templates using this logical BC Planning (BCP) workflow.

Arrange Training in Usage of Plan Template

As the full set of “Model BC Plan Template” (refer to Sample BC Plan) covers a number of scenarios, the plans you are working with will be condensed and customized into a “Model BC Plan” which directly reflects the organization’s normal business environment. The support and training can either be in-house or provided by an external agency. The trainers should be given sufficient notice so that the training can take place immediately prior to writing the BC Plan.

Finalizing the Timetable

The timing for the completion of the BC Plan would have been stated in the overall project schedule agreed to by the Executive Management at the beginning of the BCP Project. In order that no slippage occurs in these later stages, the BC Plan document should be completed as quickly as possible.

Developing and Reviewing the Plan

It is important that the plan is written and reviewed to ensure that it:
 Includes all approved recovery strategies.
 Covers all critical business functions identified in the BIA phase.
 Does not contain any duplication.
 Reflects all the actions that are to be taken.
 Confirms approval of the estimated expenditure for specific items.

Presenting the Final Plan for Approval

Once the procedure is completed, the final plan must be approved by the Executive Management. These are the steps:

Sign-off on the individual plans by the respective heads of business units.
Distribute the consolidated plan to the Executive Management.
Make a presentation to the Executive Management.
Introduce the next phase “Testing and Exercising” to Executive Management.

5. Expected Deliverables

The expected deliverables at each stage of a typical plan development phase are based on the development of the following:

Grouping and structure of plans for the entire organization.
Model BC Plan template.
BC organization structure.
Completed and approved set of BC Plans.

Reference

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

Extracted from "Chapter 2: What is Plan Development?"

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