Posted By MarcusB
Hi all,

I've spent quite a bit of time producing business continuity documents recently and my head is starting to hurt!

I've finished off the more specific ones but have some left which I think are fairly generic and was hoping someone helpful could send me examples of similar documents they have produced.

The topics I have left are:

Major flood within building
Cryogenic gas leak
Loss of power to building
Loss of water to building
Loss of Steam affecting heating

Obviously I would tailor my documents to be site/organisation specific but I can't face producing them all from scratch when someone almost certainly has an excellent example available.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help!

Posted By MarcusB
Thanks Suffolkman - I'll have a look - the BCI's not one I'd found before.

Posted By A Campbell
Problem is Marcus is that they will need to suit your individual needs.
Example... Loss of water... do you have a list of local water suppliers e.g. bowsers sufficient quantity of water for production etc?

Is the impact immediate.. or over set time periods, critical to your operations?

Who requests it?
Agreement with supplier?
Expected cost?

No set form will help with your own potential continuity problems

Posted By MarcusB
Thanks A Campbell - I realise that documents I produce will need to be specific to 'me', I just hoped I could see some examples of completed documents to help me be sure I'm going the right way with them.

Some of the points you made have already proved helpful - I just need some idea of how much detail to include/leave out.

Finding the balance between a document that doesn't have enough detail and one that's too long to be of use isn't a simple task.

Posted By A Campbell
Marcus,
No probs.. a lot of work, time etc is plowed into it and is another hat I have been passed to wear!

There is an IOSH course 'Planning for business continuity' that I may well be going to as looks like a great source of information on the subject!

Posted By A Campbell
Marcus,
Some of these may be of help..
http://www.talkingbusine...tion/free-resources.aspx

Another person I discuss with is my insurance broker as they also take an active interest and may be able to provide additional information.

Posted By Lwood
I have done BCP as part of my role and I sympathise, it was a headache for me too. Fortunately, I had access to a systems specialist who gave me the best piece of advice I ever. He pointed out that most of the work I had done so far was 'emergency planning' and not BCP!

Once this blinding bit of information was revealed to me I sat down and started again. I looked at every aspect of the company and listed them in a table, I then added an owner for that risk. My next point was a cheat, I went to each of the owners and asked them what they could do 'To Prevent it Happening'.

I pointed out to them that I would quite happily take over management once it went wrong and my 'emergency plans' covered most of the things that could go wrong. what I wanted them to do was 'plan to prevent'.

One of the managers moaned at the CEO who called me in to explain my point, once I did he spotted that dealing with it when it went wrong was expensive, dealing with it before hand was smart.

What he got me to do was to risk assess each potential problem and list where the risk was high and the cost was low. He then insisted that the manager act to prevent. Where the risk was high but the cost was high he monitored and where the risk was low I had to document that we had reviewed it, I then had to actively monitor the risk to confirm it had not changed.

This data list was about 28 A4 pages long (for a company of 9800 with a 900 million turnover), it formed part of the CEO quarterly review and had a budget (small).

Some months later when one of our risks came back to bite us and the prevention plan worked, I kept my mouth shut and let all the other managers shout about how great 'their' plans where!

The above may not help you much if what you had been looking for was better emergency plans. If you are into BCP I would be glad to chat though the layout and thinking.