Simplifying Testing
Business continuity planning efforts are made or broken by the testing program that is implemented to validate strategies, rehearse those who will play a role in recovery, and provide essential input to change management processes.
However, numerous surveys conducted over the past several months continue to demonstrate that plans are not being tested in a rigorous or meaningful way.
Most recently, AT&T’s survey of 100 firms in the Chicago area with revenues over $10M found that the number of companies undertaking a continuity planning project had increased by 15% from the previous year to 75. However, of those companies surveyed, only 43% had fully tested their plans within the last 12 months (an improvement over the 37% that did so in 2007) and almost one-fifth admitted they have never tested their business-continuity plans (up slightly from 10% in 2007).
See Simplifying Testing, by Jon Toigo.
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An unexercised contingency plan could be worse than no plan at all!
Be sure to read Disaster Recovery Testing: Exercising Your Contingency Plan, Philip Jan Rothstein, FBCI, Editor for valuable tips, techniques and insights.
