Test Monitoring

You’ve made your plan and you have it totally up-to-date, however, a business continuity plan is potentially useless if it has not been tested - so the burning question is will it work? The simple solution is to test it and test it regularly!

Testing is a critical part of the business continuity plan but it is often assumed that the business continuity plan will kick into action when necessary and work perfectly; this however is not always the case. Test monitoring of a business continuity plan is often not given the attention it requires as it can be an expensive, time-consuming process. Its value and importance to the overall business continuity plan, however, cannot be underestimated.

It helps to create as many different disaster scenarios as you can and imagine walking through the first few recovery steps for each to make sure you’re not overlooking seemingly minor details that could cause major problems. Such as, where you are storing key recovery information and tapes. Don’t forget scenarios involving human error or vandalism. From time to time, try pulling the plug out of the wall or initiating other surprise tests on a limited scale to see if your staff follow recovery procedures.

The testing stage is an integral part of our continuity planning tool, so why not utilise this essential service and ensure that testing is not overlooked.