bcpThis stage creates the clear and well documented plans that will become the blueprint in overcoming an unplanned outage or the unplanned loss of infrastructure.
Most Business Continuity Plans are generally lengthy and are difficult to follow when things are running smoothly, which inevitably makes them cumbersome and difficult to use in times of emergency.
Caimes overcomes this issue by creating high level action plans that are easy to follow, maintain, and follow in the time of emergency with a well structured reference of procedures that underpin each action plan.
The framework of our action plans are:
When: Something has occurred to invoke part of or a full BCP; timeline has been reached hence action needs to be taken; or decision has been reached and therefore an action needs to be taken.
What: What action needs to be taken in response to the “when” trigger.
Who: Who is responsible for carrying out the given “what” action item.
How: A detailed procedure on how to carry out the “what” action item.
Dependencies / Resources: The resources required to carry out the procedure or listing the procedures that are dependent on the resources.
Plan Testing
The BCP will need to be validated (tested) for effectiveness prior to clients' acceptance and this will be achieved through a series of non-intrusive theoretical tests such as a paper-based walk-though (desktop exercise).
A paler based walk through has many benefits, the major one being is being able to identify any potential omissions or weaknesses in the plan, which can then be corrected prior to an actual incident.
Plan Maintenance
The last and equally important stage of the Business Continuity Management process is developing a clear and well-structured maintenance program for all the information contained within a given BCP.
A large amount of time and effort is usually expended by organisations to create their BCP’s, however little time and effort is usually spent on developing strategies to manage the maintenance of such plans.
Caimes not only delivers clear and well documented BCP’s but also has strategies to manage the ongoing maintenance of all BCP’s with little additional overhead.
