Business Continuity Planning: A 10-Step Guide
Part 1: How to Define a Business Continuity Plan
Part 2: Business Continuity Strategy: 10 Key Steps
How to Define a Business Continuity Plan
By Chris Matt, Managing Editor - Print & E-Media - March 2011 - Emergency Preparedness
Developing a business continuity plan (BCP) is a complex task that affects all facets of commercial and institutional facilities. But breaking down a BCP into 10 key steps can help facility professionals develop a plan that will best prepare their organizations to resume normal operations as quickly as possible after disaster strikes.
Bob Mellinger, president of Attainium Corp., a continuity-planning consultant, recently outlined a 10-step process in developing a BCP during an educational session at the NFMT Conference & Expo in Baltimore. Mellinger defines business continuity management as an ongoing process that includes: emergency response; disaster recovery and business resumption; crisis management and communication; and maintenance, awareness, testing and exercising. At the forefront of this planning process are maintenance, engineering and facility managers.
Because managers have an in-depth understanding of their building operations, they sometimes develop plans that simply become too complex and too cumbersome. Managers “should not have to move plans with a forklift,” Mellinger says.
