It’s important to keep our business continuity plans up to date. That almost goes without saying. But what, exactly, do we mean by keeping our plans up to date?

Most organisations with a business continuity plan will assign someone to review it periodically – in particular, to check that the names and contact details of the various team members are kept up to date. Which is an important activity. But there’s a bit more to it than that.

There are essentially two reasons for reviewing and updating our plans.

Secondly, and just as importantly, to ensure that the strategies and solutions that underpin the plans remain fit for purpose and continue to enable us to meet our continuity objectives. Which implies that now and again we need to review those objectives and the strategies and solutions that support them.

Many organisations focus entirely on the operational detail of the plans and neglect the strategic elements. If that sounds familiar, you might consider adding a periodic strategic review to your plan maintenance programme. Otherwise, whilst you might be able to contact people without too much difficulty, it may well be to tell them that the plan doesn’t work!