By Sam | July 20, 2014

THE Most Important Question You Can Ask When Developing Your BCP

Development of your Credit Union’s Business Continuity Plan (BCP) is a methodical process.  It starts with the Business Impact Analysis (BIA).  The analysis includes a Risk Assessment Survey to help identify how likely events are to occur, and how severely they would impact your Credit Union if they did occur.  The BIA also defines and analyzes the business functions and processes of each department, and ranks them by order of criticality.  What’s the worst that can happen by identifying potential risks and outlining your day-to-day business operations?

The next step of the BCP process is plan development.  While you’ll never be ready for every possible crisis, by planning for the most-likely event(s), as defined in your Risk Assessment Survey, you’ll have a solid foundation to your BCP.  The plan’s action steps should be written for a catastrophic disaster event.  Lesser events are dealt with by using the same plans but only activating those continuity and recovery items that apply.  By using this methodology, a single comprehensive BCP can cover about 90% of all likely disaster scenarios.  Be sure to include the tools, offline forms, contact information, and policies and procedures required to support the action steps defined in your plan.  What’s the worst that can happen by being prepared to take the necessary steps to handle a crisis when it occurs?

You’ve identified the risks, defined your business processes, and documented your action steps.  It’s time to exercise your plan.  A Disaster Recovery (DR) exercise is the best opportunity you will ever have to test and document technical recovery procedures.  A Tabletop exercise is a great development tool, as it allows you to “act out” a specific disaster scenario.  Evacuation drills, as well as Robbery and Bomb Threat training, should also be conducted at least once per year.  What’s the worst that could happen by discovering missing action steps or gaps in your recovery plans? 

Testing leads to continuous improvement.  This entails updating your plan with the missing action steps and/or updating recovery procedures to eliminate those gaps discovered during testing.  Think of things you could do to prevent or minimize the effects of a disaster, and include them in your plan.  Also, keep your plan current by updating your BCP whenever there are changes.  What’s the worst that could happen by making improvements to your recovery plans and minimizing risk to your Credit Union?

Despite the past terrorist attacks of September 11, and more recent devastating weather events across our country, some Credit Unions still don’t place business continuity as a top priority.  Ask yourself this question.  What’s the worst that could happen if I didn’t develop my Business Continuity Plan?

For more information on how you can improve your business continuity program and crisis communications , contact us today.