Key Performance Indicators – How can you test your Business Continuity Plan and measure the results?
- Specific to your organization
- Set Key Performance Indicators and test them during exercises and incidents
- Continuous Improvement
Feedback from BCP Builder Community on LinkedIn:
Test Scripts
- Prepare a test script before the test. This script will contain requirements such as response time, evacuation period, recovery period which will be checked during the actual testing.
- When preparing the test script we benchmark against best practices and any applicable regulatory requirements.
- Scripts are more prevalent in testing, because you are usually testing a process or some technology or logistics. Rehearse plans, exercise people, test tech/process and functional logistics processes.
- Include how much time it takes us to reach the Disaster Recovery site and add that up when calculating your Recovery Time Objective.
Objectives
- Testing is a unique type of exercise that has an expectation of a pass or fail, people shouldn’t be told they have failed during an exercise, so setting objectives rather than Key Performance Indicators specifically is more appropriate. Plans don’t fail either, they have gaps and omissions.
- Most Business Continuity Plans carry objectives, rather than stringent Key Performance Indicators.
Evaluation Criteria
Post exercise (depending on the scope of the exercise) measure effectiveness of each tested process on the following scale:
- Completely effective: fit for purpose
- Partially effective: could be fit for purpose, with changes
- Not effective: unfit for purpose
Incident discovery process
- Incident notification framework
- Mobilization and assembly of Incident Management team
- Accounting for staff contractors and visitors
- Locating and communicating with staff
- Staff guidance and assistance
Communications Strategies:
- Staff
- Customers
- Suppliers
- Recovery and Response Teams
- Media
Staff Relocation logistics
- Staff
- Working from home
- Handling and prioritization of customer commitments
- Telephony/voice communications recovery
- IT Systems Recovery
- Locating replacements for damaged or destroyed equipment/ stock/ raw materials
- Capacity and resources available at alternative working location
- Priority business activities resumption
Response Structure Questions
- Did the team launch the plan at the appropriate trigger point?
- Escalate and communicate as per the planned response structure?
- Operate activities as defined in the Business Continuity Plan?
- Operate the correct combination of plans at Strategic, Tactical or Operational levels?
- Manage resources as planned, manage supply chains as planned and manage media as planned?
Exercise Scenarios
- Work force availability
- Workplace inaccessibility and technological failures
- Various exercise scenarios can be conducted to specifically tests each of the components in the organization which helps us to accumulate the Continual improvement action report
Continuous Improvement
- Embracing continuous improvement as an element of the program and evangelizing that can help when organizations are less mature in their journey and can be discouraged if Key Performance Indicators are not met.
If you want to increase your Organizational Resilience, start with preparing a Business Continuity Plan and check out BCP Builder’s Business Continuity Planning Templates.
