This guidance walks managers and response teams through critical functions, planning assumptions, disruptive incidents and testing the business continuity plan.

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Further Reading

Further guidance on business continuity and emergency preparedness:

• Business Continuity Risk and Impact Analysis
• Backup, Business Continuity and ICT Recovery
• Emergency Preparedness
• ISO 22301 knowledge base

How to Download

These files are included in the alphaZ subscription. The training talk is also included in the ISO 22301 Toolkit and the integrated toolkits that include it.

Need Help Implementing?

If you'd like hands-on help putting your business continuity register, plan and test records in place, our remote support services provide direct expert input from our team, by the day, by project, or on an ongoing basis.

Business Continuity Guidance

A general guidance document on business continuity for managers and the members of any response or recovery team. It explains how continuity risks are recorded, who is responsible, how critical functions are identified, the types of disruptive incident to plan for, and how plans are tested and reviewed.

Topics Covered

• Continuity and the company - considering the impact of a disruptive incident on activities, supply chains and relationships, with risks recorded on F-IMS21 Business Continuity Register
• Responsibilities and response teams - management commitment, where general and continuity responsibilities are set out, and making sure every team member knows their role
• Business critical functions - reviewing all operations at least annually to identify critical functions, recorded on F-Q92 Business Critical Function Appraisal
• Disruptive incidents - natural, deliberate and accidental events, and supply and utility failures such as the loss of a supplier, power or telecommunications
• Reviewing assumptions - identifying and reviewing what is taken for granted when assessing the impact of an incident on a critical function
• Awareness and communication - the incident response structure, who communicates in different circumstances and how people communicate during a disruptive incident
• Business continuity plans - the immediate steps, named responsible people and contact details, and testing plans with F-Q93 Continuity Test Record

Who Is It For?

Managers responsible for business continuity, members of the response and recovery teams, and anyone named in the business continuity plan.

Included in the ISO 22301 Toolkit

This guidance is supplied with the TT-1-05 Business Continuity training talk, which is part of the ISO 22301 Toolkit and the integrated toolkits that include it.

Using the Guidance

Use it to brief the response team and the people named in the plan, and refer to it when critical functions and plans are reviewed or tested. Record who has received it, for example on the training matrix.

Planning for the Worst Case

The section on assumptions asks whether the plan relies on things that may not hold after an incident, such as recovering anything from the premises, everyone named in the plan being available, off-site backups being current, alternative locations and equipment being usable, and phones being diverted. It asks you to consider the worst case, where no communication systems are available at all.

Adapting the Guidance

Edit the guidance to match your own arrangements - the make-up of your response and recovery teams, the incident types most relevant to you, the assumptions your plan relies on, and the registers and forms you use to record continuity risks, critical functions and tests.

Related Documents

Other documents that work alongside this guidance:

• PP-1-05 Business Continuity Policy Procedure
• P-34 Business Continuity Policy Statement
• F-IMS21 Business Continuity Register
• F-Q94 Business Continuity Plan Form
• F-Q92 Business Critical Function Appraisal Form
• F-Q93 Continuity Test Record
• GG-8-02 Data Backup