Business Continuity Plan Template - Queensland Government Guide 2013

This document is a Business Continuity Plan (BCP) template, designed to guide businesses in developing strategies to maintain operations during critical incidents. The template, based on the Prevention, Preparedness, Response, and Recovery (PPRR) framework, covers risk management planning, business impact analysis, and incident response and recovery plans. It includes sections on risk assessment, business impact analysis to identify critical activities and recovery time objectives, incident response checklists, evacuation procedures, and emergency kits. The plan emphasizes the importance of regular reviews, training, and updates to ensure its effectiveness. The template provides a comprehensive framework for businesses to assess risks, develop response strategies, and plan for recovery from disruptions, ensuring business continuity. It also includes sections on insurance, data security, key contacts, and a glossary of terms to facilitate understanding and implementation.

Business Continuity Plan Template

Course 2
© State of Queensland, 2013.
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© The State of Queensland (Open Learning Institute of TAFE) 2024 Page 3
Version: tmp3f8lq7e0.doc

Contents
INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................1
Developing a Business Continuity Plan...............................................................1
BUSINESS CONTINUITY PLAN........................................................................1
Distribution List................................................................................................1
References and related documents................................................................1
SECTION 1..........................................................................................................1
Executive Summary (optional)........................................................................1
Objectives....................................................................................................... 1
Glossary..........................................................................................................1
SECTION 2..........................................................................................................1
Risk Management Planning.................................................................................1
Insurance........................................................................................................ 1
Data security and backup strategy..................................................................1
SECTION 3..........................................................................................................1
Business Impact Analysis....................................................................................1
Business Impact Analysis................................................................................1
SECTION 4..........................................................................................................1
Incident Response Plan.......................................................................................1
Immediate Response Checklist.......................................................................1
Evacuation Procedures...................................................................................1
Emergency kit................................................................................................. 1
Roles and Responsibilities..............................................................................1
Key Contact Sheet.......................................................................................... 1
Event Log........................................................................................................1
SECTION 5..........................................................................................................1
Recovery............................................................................................................. 1
Recovery Plan.................................................................................................1
Incident Recovery Checklist............................................................................1
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Recovery contacts...........................................................................................1
Insurance claims............................................................................................. 1
Market assessment.........................................................................................1
SECTION 6..........................................................................................................1
Rehearse, Maintain and Review..........................................................................1
Training schedule............................................................................................1
Review schedule.............................................................................................1
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Introduction
The purpose of developing a Business Continuity Plan is to ensure the
continuation of your business during and following any critical incident that
results in disruption to your normal operational capability.
This guide will assist you to undertake a Risk Management Plan and Business
Impact Analysis, and create Incident Response and Recovery Plans for your
business.
Developing a Business Continuity Plan
This template incorporates the Prevention, Preparedness, Response and
Recovery (PPRR) framework. Each of the four key elements is represented by
a part in the Business Continuity Planning Process.
 Prevention - Risk Management planning
- Incorporates the Prevention element that identifies and manages
the likelihood and/or effects of risk associated with an incident.
 Preparedness - Business Impact Analysis
- Incorporates the Preparedness element that identifies and
prioritises the key activities of a business that may be adversely
affected by any disruptions.
 Response – Incident Response planning
- Incorporates the Response element and outlines immediate
actions taken to respond to an incident in terms of containment,
control and minimising impacts.
 Recovery - Recovery planning
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- Incorporates the Recovery element that outlines actions taken to
recover from an incident in order to minimise disruption and
recovery times.
We have also included a section titled Rehearse, Maintain and Review, which
encourages you to test, regularly review and update your Business Continuity
Plan to ensure that your staff are familiar with it, and that it reflects your
changing business needs.
Business operators should use the following template as a guide to developing
a Business Continuity Plan. Customise it to suit your business needs. The blue
sample text is there to guide you and can be deleted after you have completed
the template. Remember to save your document.
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Page 5

Insert Your
Business Name
Business Continuity Plan
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Date: _____________________________________________
Distribution List
To assist in updating and revising the plan, an up-to-date list of all plan
locations and persons supplied with a copy of the plan should be included.
Copy Number Name Location
001
002
003
004
005
006
References and related documents
Include all documents that have a bearing on your Business Continuity Plan.
Document Title
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Section 1
Executive Summary (optional)
An executive summary is the plan in miniature (usually one page or shorter). It
should contain enough information for a reader to get acquainted with the plan
without reading the full document.
Depending on the size of your business and the length of your document, you
may choose not to include an executive summary.
Objectives
Objectives serve as a means of clarifying the purpose of your plan and should
describe the intended result. An example of plan objectives are listed below:
The objectives of this plan are to:
 undertake risk management assessment
 define and prioritise your critical business functions
 detail your immediate response to a critical incident
 detail strategies and actions to be taken to enable you to stay in business
 review and update this plan on a regular basis.
Glossary
This table provides a consistent and commonly agreed set of definitions for
terms used in the plan. You should customise this list to suit your business.
Business Continuity
Planning
a process that helps develop a plan document to manage the
risks to a business, ensuring that it can operate to the extent
required in the event of a crisis/disaster.
Business Continuity
Plan
a document containing all of the information required to
ensure that your business is able to resume critical business
activities should a crisis/disaster occur.
Business Impact
Analysis
the process of gathering information to determine basic
recovery requirements for your key business activities in the
event of a crisis/disaster.
Key business
activities
those activities essential to deliver outputs and achievement
of business objectives.
Recovery Time
Objective (RTO)
the time from which you declare a crisis/disaster to the time
that the critical business functions must be fully operational in
order to avoid serious financial loss.
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Resources the means that support delivery of an identifiable output and/or
result. Resources may be money, physical assets, or most
importantly, people.
Risk Management is the process of defining and analysing risks, and then deciding on
the appropriate course of action in order to minimise these risks,
whilst still achieving business goals.
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Section 2
Risk Management Planning
You need to manage the risks to your business by identifying and analysing
the things that may have an adverse effect on your business and choosing the
best method of dealing with each of these identified risks.
The questions to ask yourself are:
 What could cause an impact?
 How serious would that impact be?
 What is the likelihood of this occurring?
 Can it be reduced or eliminated?
An example is provided in the following table for you.
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