Business continuity management is about writing a business continuity plan, right?

Wrong! It’s about putting in place a continuity capability that meets the needs of the business, of which the plan is a small (albeit important) part. This involves far more than simply writing a plan.

It’s about :

• Understanding the requirements of the business, which means some form of business impact analysis and risk assessment;

• Implementing an appropriate strategy and solutions to meet those business requirements;

• Putting in place a sound incident management capability;

• Educating staff so that everyone (particularly key players) knows their roles and responsibilities;

• Documenting the plan (in a form that’s usable if it has to be actioned for real);

• Exercising and testing to ensure everything actually works;

• Managing change and keeping plans and the underlying strategy and solutions up to date.

So whilst the plan is important, it’s the planning process that really matters.

As Dwight D. Eisenhower is quoted as saying, "Plans are nothing; planning is everything." Which sums it up nicely really.