Building entity resilience

Continuity team members
Personnel need to be identified for the business continuity (recovery) teams. The make-up of the team may be based on consideration of an individual’s personal characteristics as much of their position within the entity. Leaders and members of a recovery team need the following personal attributes:

• effective people and communication skills;
• the ability to work well under stress and balance competing priorities;
• a good understanding of the entity;
• an ability to work well in teams; and
• respect within the entity.
  

Team members must understand, and be capable of carrying out, what is required of them in a business continuity situation and must be aware of the possible disruptive consequences of their actions or inaction. This requires explicit communication and coordination through job descriptions, awareness programs, special training and testing and exercising of plans.

Entity staff
People are the major focus of a business disruption. Equipment, infrastructure and facilities may all be operational but if people cannot reach their work place, or perform their jobs, critical business processes will cease or be disrupted.

Human resource management can be a challenge to successfully activating the contingency plan. For example, if the business continuity plan calls for staff to move to another location, some staff such as primary carers, part-time students, and members of volunteer services, may not be available.

Preparing the business continuity plan(s)

Documentation of the recovery arrangements to be implemented after a business disruption has occurred is the role of the business continuity plan.

There is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to developing a business continuity plan. The size and structure of business continuity plans will ultimately be determined by the entity’s environment and requirements.

Better practice business continuity plans produced consist of action-oriented procedures, based on the approved recovery treatments and alternative activities and resources identified.

If the structure that is created for operating during a business disruption event consists of multiple teams or includes sub-teams, it is important that each team has its own plan with action-oriented procedures and contact lists. If there are multiple plans, it is also necessary to have an overarching entity-wide plan to coordinate the sub-plans. Thus the suite of planning documentation may include an emergency response management plan, an incident management plan, an entity-wide business continuity plan, and several business continuity sub-plans.

As the focus of this guide is business continuity management, the development of the entity-wide business continuity plan and the business continuity sub-plans is discussed. However the principles involved in preparing these plans are applicable to the other plans.

No matter how well designed an entity’s business continuity plan may seem, it is essential to train staff and conduct testing and exercises. Training is discussed on page 19 and testing and exercising is discussed on page 61 of this better practice guide.

The entity-wide business continuity plan
The entity-wide business continuity plan combines individual support area and business unit recovery plans into one coordinated plan. The recovery steps common to support areas and business units are combined into this plan (for example to inform staff of the business disruption event). The entity-wide business continuity plan also addresses the issues to which the entity, as a whole, must respond following the declaration of a business continuity event.

Activation
As well as combining the individual support area and business unit plans, the entity-wide business continuity plan contains the criteria for activating the plan. Declaration of a business continuity event is a decision for the incident or business continuity manager, or other designated staff, based on entity-specific information. Table 5 provides an example of a written activation procedure.

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