Testing and Training

It's not only critical that your crisis team is trained to use your business continuity plan, it's also important that all employees are aware of the plan and understand their roles and the roles of everyone else. It is this type of training that can help ensure that employees won't panic in a crisis and will be aware that steps are being taken to handle any situation that arises. You'll find help with this in the articles below.

Here are some steps in developing and implementing your test. (Item #1)   Some say there is no better learning curve in crisis management than managing through an actual crisis. (Item #2)   Use this template to build and execute your test. (Item #3)  

All employees need to be trained so they fully understand that continuing the business after a disaster may not mean an immediate return to "business as usual." (Item #4)   In this article, you'll find help for building awareness of your plan among employees. (Item #5)   All employees are critical to the success of your Business Continuity Program and need to receive the appropriate level of education and training. (Item #6)  

As always, we look forward to hearing your comments & insights regarding business continuity. If you have a topic you'd like us to cover, email me at [email protected].

Bob Mellinger, President
Attainium Corp

1. How to Conduct Testing of a Business Continuity Plan

Once you have developed your business continuity plan, or BCP, it is just as important to test your plan. Testing verifies the effectiveness of your plan, trains plan participants on what to do in a real scenario and identifies areas where the plan needs to be strengthened.
http://smallbusiness.chron.com/conduct-testing-business-continuity-plan-4526.html

2. In-crisis decision making: practice makes perfect

Although the 'In-crisis decision making' information series formally concluded with the previous article, 'Majority rules decision making', we have decided to continue the series as a means of responding to the overwhelming number of questions and information requests received. In this and subsequent articles we will be providing some thoughts and suggestions on a variety of related topics; the first of which addresses one of the most frequently asked questions; how do you exercise or train for in-crisis decision making?
http://www.continuitycentral.com/feature0775.html

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

Business continuity (BC) and disaster recovery (DR) plans are useless until you test them. Fortunately, many types of tests are possible, ranging from simple to very complex. The key to business continuity testing success is to incorporate testing as part of the overall business continuity/disaster recovery management process.
http://searchdisasterrecovery.techtarget.com/feature/Business-continuity-and-disaster-recovery-testing-templates-A-free-download-and-guide

4. Training Employees for Business Continuity

As long as business continuity strategies have existed, they have been misunderstood by many people in business - especially by those whose jobs are not immediately affected by a business continuity problem. Because of this, C-level executives, HR departments, and senior IT managers are well-advised to commit time upfront to employee training and preparedness, so that these elements don't have to be addressed when you least want to deal with them - during an actual disaster.
http://content.dell.com/us/en/enterprise/d/large-business/training-employees-continuity.aspx

5. Business Continuity and Training for All Levels of an Organization

In this article, a simple procedure for gaining commitment and raising awareness is outlined. The tips are based on procedures followed in my organization. We successfully implemented a training program that raised awareness and garnered commitment from all levels of personnel. If your company needs to improve its BC planning awareness among employees, perhaps implementing a training program similar to ours will give you a good start.
http://www.drj.com/tools/model/business-continuity-and-training-for-all-levels-of-an-organization.html

6. 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 or pages in a computer document. 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.
http://www.ism.ws/files/Pubs/Proceedings/2010ProcBC2-Kildow.pdf