Talk:Business continuity planning

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I have comments on this topic. The overall concept of Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Planning are under review and development by the ISO to create a family of standards similar to the ISO 9000 family for Quality Management. This new family will be covered in the ISO 27000 family and several of the existing standards as mentioned below will fold into this new family of standards including ISO 17799, ISO 24762, ISO 27001, BS 25999-1. These are discussed in ISO/TC 223 (IWA 5:2006). [1]

The overall principle here is that Disaster Recovery is primarily designed for technology and as such is designated as specific to technology only within the proposed standards. Business Continuity Management is the holistic view for managing risk to continued operation of business. Business Continuity Planning (Plans) are the governing documentation that will include all the aspects of risk mitigation; including security, technology, preparation and recovery for the various scenarios up to and including a pandemic.

Therefore the information consolidation should take place under the heading of “Business Continuity Management” not Business Continuity Plan. This will enhance the value of information offered. 19:54, 30 May 2007 (UTC)19:54, 30 May 2007 (UTC)WoodstockDan 19:54, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I have some comments on the article. However, overall it is a good article, and my comments should be read in that context. Indeed, I hope the fact that they will be obscure points, to most 'lay persons', underlines that.

(1) I feel that your article is too focussed on the IT aspects of business continuity. The methodology you described comes from the IT business continuity standards. BS7799 is still valid as an IT standard, but the British Standards Institute is developing a new standard based on PAS56, which is what most UK business continuity practitioners work to (see www.thebci.org). The London bombings of 7/7 exposed that too many organisations’ BCPs did not give enough thought to the human aspects of emergencies.

Two ideas here, (1) add what you think is appropriate about PAS56, and/or (2) add a section to describe the such local standards to de-Westernize the article as you see fit. If I don't like it, I will edit. Revmachine21 13:48, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

BS7799, or ISO17799 as it's known internationally, is indeed chiefly an IT standard, with some more general disaster management procedure standards. It's also official, and recognised by British Standards (not called the BSI any more) and the International Organization for Standardization. Whereas PAS56 is a "standard" created by a for-profit organisation calling themselves the Business Continuity Institute (£60 / $111 to see a standard? Real standards are available for free), with under 2000 members worldwide. Any mention of this 'PAS56' will be veering close to advertising. (Try and find anything on PAS01 - PAS55!). Proto t c 14:16, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

As I stated, PAS56 is the basis for a new business continuity standard, that will shortly be published by British Standards. The Publically Available Specification Publically Available Specification IS published by British Standards, and they hold the copyright. You may not be able to find 1 to 55 - they have probably been developed to full standards! It is also referred to and recommended by the UK government's statutory guidance to public sector organisations: see Emergency Preparedness (warning! large pdf file) section 6.43 Sneakysnaga t c 20:57, 16 August 2005

I would like to comment on your comments, if I may. The new British Standard for Business Continuity, which is to be BS 25999, will replace PAS 56, but I don't belive it is based on PAS 56. I understand that the expert committee involved with its development are building it from the "ground up". BS 7799, as it was called, was in two parts. A Specification and A Guidance. The Guidance part (part 1) was adopted by ISO and called ISO/IEC 17799. Part 2 of the standard is the specification, which means companies can be audit to the standard, or if the wish, to certify to the standard. It is a management system for Information Security and not just IT Security. Yes, it was developed by the IT ISO technical committee, but it is an organization wide standard. In October 2005 this part of the standard was adopted by ISO and is now ISO/IEC 27001:2005. ISO/IEC 17799:2005 will become ISO/IEC 27002 in 2007, but this is expected to be a name change only. BSI Still exists as a company, but has four divisions, one of which is Britsh Standards (I have BSI on my business card). Can I propose that Business Continuity really is about the planning (BCP) of how an organization cn return to normal business operation in the event of a disaster, Service Continuity is about recovering the IT service delivery and Disaster Recovery is about recovering the organizations information in the event of a disaster? The circumstances of when information is lost may be different to the circumstances of when there is an organization wide disaster. Business Continuity is led by the business. Disaster Recovery and Service Continuity are a subset of Business Continuity. --Rob 12:36, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

(2) Business Continuity Management emerged from Disaster Recovery, as organisations realised that a focus on IT recovery from disruption might be irrelevant if the wider business could not operate. Business Continuity today focuses as much on business processes, as the IT underpinnings of those processes. It is also tightly coupled with Crisis Management, which aims to ensure the reputation of the organisation survives an incident intact. This topic should be mentioned and linked to.

Please do so. Revmachine21 13:48, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

P.S. Went back and checked the article, Crisis Management is already referenced. Revmachine21

(3) There is much debate about DR and BCM as labels for activities, which is in part because of the historical roots of the discipline. This reflects that there is a continuum of related activities that may take place under this heading, with a variety of methods. Accordingly, setting out a single method as correct is probably not appropriate for this article.

Don't understand what you mean here. Personally would avoid an archane treatise about terminology. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia article for the general public, not a PhD dissertation going into the quantative differences between word X and Y. Revmachine21 13:48, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Correct, there is no single 'correct' method of business continuity planning. They all share the same underlying principles, however. Proto t c 14:16, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

(4) You state that “This lack of interest unequivocally ended September 11th 2001, when simultaneous terrorist attacks devastated downtown New York City and changed the 'worst case scenario' paradigm for business continuity planning.” Your citation is to an opinion piece, which itself has no evidence that this paradigm shift has taken place, and is in fact a call for it to take place. By contrast there is much evidence to suggest that many organisations still do not have business continuity plans at all.

Sorry, totally disagree. Regulators, particularly financial regulators, have raised the mark dramatically, added miles/kilometers to minimum safe distances. Companies raised their budgets. Drills became more serious. This is personal experience earned by force marching staff down 37 flights of stairs to make sure they knew how to get out of my high-rise building and being subjected to much more audit scrutinity of my BCP plans. Oh, BTW, when we got to the bottom floor we found the emergency exits were locked from the outside. If that had been for real, we woulda been spam in a can. Revmachine21 13:48, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Please include a reference to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)for chemical and radiological events. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LeavingEden2018 (talk • contribs) 02:04, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

Indeed. ISO 17799 didn't exist in its current form until after September 11. A far greater emphasis on disaster planning, business contoinuity, crisis management, whatever you want to call it has definitely been visible since 2001. Proto t c 14:16, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

(5) My comments are based on the UK experience, and my reading of your article is that it is mostly relevant to the ‘West’. I would suggest that for a global resource such as the Wikipedia, a context statement is relevant. I personally have no idea about the global spread of business continuity but imagine it is less well advanced in the other parts of the world.

I would argue that the BCP discipline is driven by heavily regulated industries such as finance, pharmaceutical, energy, health, etc. In all those fields, the 'West' unfortunately leads the rest of the world, other countries tend to follow, all-be-it with their own adaptions. If you can come up with some relevant information to add a non-Western spin, please do so. Revmachine21 13:48, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Excellent comments it seems. You clearly have a detailed knowledge of the subject and it is exactly someone like you that needs to fix the things you see. No one, even a very knowledgeable person, such as Revmachine21 who I believe wrote nearly the entire article can write without any bias, and you may have uncovered it, or you may be off base on some of your comments--I don't know enough about the subject to decide. But you and Rev can discuss it and fix the issues. Please find the relevant sources and cite them so that the article can be as verifiably correct as possible. Consider signing up for a username and helping to improve the article. Thanks - Taxman ^Talk 12:22, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

Thank you Taxman. I have now signed up for a username. I will endeavour to help out as much as possible. Time permitting! Sneakysnaga t c 20:57, 16 August 2005

(6) Regarding the suggestion to merge this article with Disaster Recovery

The concept of Disaster Recovery only embraces one aspect of Business Continuity and the planning that an organization must undertake to ensure reliable service delivery. Perhaps "Disaster Recovery" and "Business Impact Analysis" would more appropriately exist separately from, but still contain links to, "Business Continuity Planning." Networktester  t c 12:09, 25 February 2006

Disaster recovery is already in existence, click link. Also agree that it should remain separate. The Business Impact Analysis would have to be a new article, probably a nice addition too. Have at it & have fun! Revmachine21 00:24, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

There is over reliance on BS7799. We will have to appreciate that BS7799 is a information security standard and it does not clearly spell out BCP practices. BCP is not about IT only! what happened in Kathrina storm/9-11/Mumbai floods is not about IT alone. It's time we cleaned up this article. Let's do justice to field of BCP and put content accordinly.

Fabulous idea darling. Please proceed. Revmachine21 08:46, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Analysis

The analysis phase in the development of a BCP manual consists of an impact analysis, threat analysis, and impact scenarios with the resulting BCP plan requirement documentation.

Impact analysis

An impact analysis results in the differentiation between critical and non-critical organization functions. A function may be considered critical if the implications for stakeholders of damage to the organization resulting are regarded as unacceptable. Perceptions of the acceptability of disruption may be modified by the cost of establishing and maintaining appropriate business or technical recovery solutions. A function may also be considered critical if dictated by law. Next, the impact analysis results in the recovery requirements for each critical function. Recovery requirements consist of the following information:

• The time frame in which the critical function must be resumed after the disaster
• The business requirements for recovery of the critical function, and/or
• The technical requirements for recovery of the critical function

Threat analysis

The coronavirus suggested as a causative agent for the SARS outbreak in 2002

After defining recovery requirements, documenting potential threats is recommended to detail a specific disaster’s unique recovery steps. Some common threats include the following:

• Disease [2]
• Earthquake [3]
• Fire
• Flood [4]
• Cyber attack
• Hurricane [5]
• Utility outage [6]
• Terrorism [7]

All threats in the examples above share a common impact - the potential of damage to organizational infrastructure - except one (disease). The impact of diseases is initially purely human, and may be alleviated with technical and business solutions. During the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak, some organizations grouped staff into separate teams, and rotated the teams between the primary and secondary work sites, with a rotation frequency equal to the incubation period of the disease. The organizations also banned face-to-face contact between opposing team members during business and non-business hours. With such a split, organizations increased their resiliency against the threat of government-ordered quarantine measures if one person in a team contracted or was exposed to the disease [8]. Damage from flooding also has a unique characteristic. If an office environment is flooded with non-salinated and contamination-free water (e.g.m, in the event of a pipe burst), equipment can be thoroughly dried and may still be functional.

I added some more to the article (such as random failure of mission critical systems), but I also think "Terrorism" should be removed. Loss of Confidentiality (or theft), Availability, or Integrity of critical information or material, or loss of mission critical functionality is the goal of any attacker - terrorist, hacker, or Other. I see no difference between a Terrorist and and Insider intend to do the same damage (sabotoge or other forms). I suggest simply the introduction of an internal or external threat entity.--74.107.74.39 (talk) 23:50, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Definition of impact scenarios

After defining potential threats, documenting the impact scenarios that form the basis of the business recovery plan is recommended. In general, planning for the most wide-reaching disaster or disturbance is preferable to planning for a smaller scale problem, as almost all smaller scale problems are partial elements of larger disasters. A typical impact scenario like 'Building Loss' will most likely encompass all critical business functions, and the worst potential outcome from any potential threat. A business continuity plan may also document additional impact scenarios if an organization has more than one building. Other more specific impact scenarios - for example a scenario for the temporary or permanent loss of a specific floor in a building - may also be documented.

Recovery requirement documentation

After the completion of the analysis phase, the business and technical plan requirements are documented in order to commence the implementation phase. For an office-based, IT intensive business, the plan requirements may cover the following elements which may be classed as ICE (In Case of Emergency) Data:

• The numbers and types of desks, whether dedicated or shared, required outside of the primary business location in the secondary location
• The individuals involved in the recovery effort along with their contact and technical details
• The applications and application data required from the secondary location desks for critical business functions
• The manual workaround solutions
• The maximum outage allowed for the applications
• The peripheral requirements like printers, copier, fax machine, calculators, paper, pens etc.

Other business environments, such as production, distribution, warehousing etc will need to cover these elements, but are likely to have additional issues to manage following a disruptive event.

StandardsDirect.org

I removed the link to a standards purchase site, standardsdirect.org. See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam#StandardsDirect.org for more about this site. As I see it, Wikipedia is not a directory and we're not here to help people sell things. Most of these standardsdirect.org links have been added by single purpose accounts who likely have a conflict of interest. See:

• Conflict of Interest Guideline
• What Wikipedia is Not Policy
• External Links Guideline
• Spam Guideline

If an established, high-volume editor wants to add it back to the article, by all means go ahead. Otherwise, it stays out pending resolution at the spam discussion link above. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs)} 00:43, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Relationships and Entities

Others have noted there's an overemphasis on IT in the article.

What specifically about the continuity of relationships - for example, if the company should go out of business, there may need to be a plan for customers to be serviced (or records retained) by a designated alternate entity. I think this type of continuity setup is common in the Accounting world for instance.

DouglasHeld (talk) 10:00, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Business impact analysis

This article is currently the target for business impact analysis - imo it justifies its own article, which is probably where metrics like RTO and RPO should be located. Tule-hog (talk) 02:34, 21 July 2024 (UTC)