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 Are Your Personnel “Competent” in Performing Their Business Continuity Responsibilities?
May 11, 2009 by Susan Giffin

New and emerging business continuity standards highlight that personnel should be “competent” in performing their business continuity responsibilities.  This may seem like an obvious statement but it can be an area in which organizations often forget to focus.  Business continuity practitioners and their sponsors that read BS 25999-2 (which summarizes this requirement in Sections 4.2.5 and 4.3.1) often ask two questions specific to the concept of competency: 

  1. What exactly does “competent” mean?
  2. Who does this requirement apply to in our organization?
 Introducing BS25999
September 07, 2007 by Lucine Ghazarian
British Standard 25999 is a business continuity standard that was developed by a committee of practitioners chosen by the British Standard Institute (BSI).  The standard provides basic guidance and recommendations for a wide range of organizations in need of a business continuity management system (BCMS).  Although 25999 is not yet certifiable, it is becoming more and more widespread, competing as a leader amongst business continuity standards due to its easy to follow framework and actionable recommendations.
 Designing a Business Continuity Training Program to Maximize Value & Minimize Cost
March 26, 2007 by Susan Yardis
Can management rely on a business continuity program if employees are unaware of their response and recovery strategies?  No – and as a result, the time and resources invested in the planning effort are wasted.  A properly designed training and awareness program can bridge this gap and it can be developed and implemented in a cost effective and efficient manner.
 Testing Strategies that Demonstrate Recoverability
February 14, 2007 by The Avalution Team
You can obtain assurance that your business continuity strategies will work in one of two ways – a test (a.k.a. an exercise) or a real-world event. Without either, no one can state that a business continuity strategy will work as designed. Since no one really wants to test their plan for the first time with a real-world event, let’s look at some testing strategies that work and demonstrate recoverability.
 Selling Involvement
December 11, 2006 by Brian Zawada
Securing investment by management in business continuity resources is getting easier and easier.  Current events, customer demands, regulatory requirements and governance imperatives are all leading executive managers to invest more resources into business and technology recovery and resiliency strategies.  However, the business continuity planner’s current challenge is getting executive managers to invest more of their own time participating in testing and training sessions.
 Solving the Training Dilemma
August 12, 2006 by Susan Yardis
Employee awareness and training often proves to be the biggest obstacle to maturing a business continuity program. This perspective explores the challenges and proposes solutions that will enable employees to understand their role in business continuity.
 New Webcast: Using Technology to Extend the Reach of Exercises
July 16, 2006 by Robert Giffin
Multi-media computer based training, when combined with traditional table-top exercising methods, enables business continuity planners to “test” and train more and more business units each year.
 Taking a Holistic View of Availability Risk
October 01, 2005 by The Avalution Team
The business continuity industry, driven by a growing body of regulations, standards and guidelines, is primarily focused on developing processes to limit the impact of a disaster to the business. This reactionary based approach is focused on developing plans to help employees and management react appropriately to disaster. Too often, this is viewed by executives and board members as simple 'insurance' and is rarely considered valuable unless it's used in an actual disaster.