Top 100 Tips for BCP Success in 2012 – Business Impact Analysis

This week we will cover the Top 10 Tips for a Business Impact Analysis

  1. Use a Business Process focused approach – Focusing on Business Processes will show what effects a disruption will have on the business by identifying the functions essential for business survival as well as key interdependencies.

2. Measure financial / non-financial impact categories – Measure the dollar and non-dollar impacts of not performing a business process over time.

3. Weight importance of financial and non-financial impact categories – Weight each category of impact based on importance (e.g., Loss of Revenue – 20%, Impact to Customer Service – 15%).

4. Utilize revenue based financial impact scale – Create an scale that reflects minor to catastrophic financial impacts specific to your company’s revenue.

5. One on one interviews yield the most success – Prepare the participants with a pre-interview form, then use the one on one interviews to talk through and review the data.

6. Complete BIA interviews in 2.5 hours or less – Focused meetings minimizing digression can yield the best results for the duration of the interview.

7. Validate results with a small team – Going through the results with a few knowledgeable people can help validate that the results truly reflect the impacts of an event.

8. Update annually for critical business units – Technology, functions, dependencies, and methods can change year over year. It is important to keep Management and the BC Office and Plans updated on which Business process/groups will have the biggest impact to the business.

9. Align BIA results with the business and IT – The goal is a business continuity plan that recovers your business as well as your systems.

10. Gain management approval via signature – Having management sign off BIA results will further validate results are in line with the business and management goals.

Next week … Top 10 Tips for a Crisis Management Team