Exercising the Business Continuity Plan

If you're not buried under some of the historic inches/feet of snow that have fallen in various locations of the US, you likely feel sorry for the folks getting all that weather but you're also glad it's not you. But what if you pretend it is you? Wouldn't this winter weather (not to mention flooding and fires on the west coast) be a good scenario for testing your business continuity plan? What would you do if it was your business under all that snow or in that flooding this week? Dust off your BC plan, take a look at this week's articles, and do a table-top simulation of how you would survive Mother Nature's wrath!

Exercises are used to testing emergency plans but they are also useful events to run when actually writing plans and procedures because they help generate discussions and stimulate thinking on what the contents of the plan could be. (Item #1)     A program of training, exercises, and tests moves plans beyond the concept stage, provides training opportunities for employees, and helps identify needed corrections in procedures and plans. (Item #2)     Testing business recovery plans is an important step to validate and check its content and approaches, ensuring that plans are actionable before a possible real disruption. (Item #3)    

A tabletop exercise ("TTX") is a facilitated scenario-based discussion that tests a plan in a protected environment. (Item #4)     How can business continuity professionals conduct more effective exercises? (Item #5)     Download this free business continuity test template and guide to learn how to conduct a successful test. (Item #6)    

As always, I look forward to hearing about your concerns with regard to business continuity. If there are any topics that you'd like to see covered, email me at [email protected].

Bob Mellinger, President
Attainium Corp

1. Testing & Exercising your Business Continuity Plan

Most of us have been involved in things like fire drills where we practice what we would actually do in the event of a fire alarm. An exercise is very similar - a group of people either talk about what they'd do if an emergency happened or they take part in an actual simulation and respond as though an emergency was happening. The people developing the exercise usually create a scenario or a story board explaining what particular disaster has happened and what the consequences would be, which the exercise participants then work through.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web
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2. Keys to Narrowing Business Continuity Planning Gaps: Training, Testing & Audits

A Business Continuity Plan is not a plan until it has been tested; it is only theory, sheets of paper in a binder. A program of training, exercises, and tests moves plans beyond the concept stage, provides training opportunities for employees, and helps identify needed corrections in procedures and plans. All employees are critical to the success of your Business Continuity Program and need to receive the appropriate level of education and training.
http://www.ism.ws/files/Pubs/Proceedings/2010ProcBC2-Kildow.pdf

3. Testing the Business Continuity Plan: checking with reality

The phrase "checking with reality" is more than a figure of speech when it comes to business continuity planning. A reality check in the form of a contingency/recoverability test is necessary to validate the hard work of the Continuity Manager in mapping business and critical processes, identifying Single Point of Failure (SPOF), performing gap analysis between the primary environment and recovery needs environment, evaluating Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPO), and evaluating off-site and technology infrastructure.
http://www.bcpnews.com/?p=1637

4. How to Plan a Table-Top Exercise

Hosts from the fictional "Hot Topics" talk show, take audience members through a spirited and banter-filled, step-by-step training process on the planning cycle for creating a table-top exercise.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5GwKru1Z0g

5. Tips for More Effective Exercises

At the 2012 Continuity Insights Management Conference, business continuity experts discuss the importance of realistic exercises -- test the plan, don't plan the test.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YC26Vwp8M-c

6. Business continuity and disaster recovery testing templates: A free download and guide

The key to business continuity testing success is to incorporate testing as part of the overall business continuity/disaster recovery management process. Testing can be a major challenge to many organizations. They require management support, time for preparation and execution, funding, careful planning and a structured process from pre-test through test and post-test evaluation.
http://searchdisasterrecovery.techtarget.com/feature/Business-continuity-and-disaster-recovery-testing-templates-A-free-download-and-guide