Business Continuity Plan: Project Management - University Project

This project presents a business continuity plan developed for a large manufacturing organization, addressing key aspects of project management, stakeholder engagement, and system implementation. As the newly appointed Chief Financial Officer (CFO), the student outlines a plan to secure support for the business continuity management framework, emphasizing clear sponsorship, responsibility, and accountability. The project details the governance structures, including the roles and responsibilities of various stakeholders such as the project manager, finance manager, and system developer. The plan includes a detailed communication strategy to gain approval for resources, design and develop a SAP ERP management system, and establish a supportive work environment. The project also covers monitoring the project through milestones, status reports, and communication management. The project incorporates methods to analyze the reports on business continuity management framework and discusses the importance of change implementation review. Finally, the project considers the assessment of individual and stakeholder performance, budget auditing, and continuous monitoring to minimize disruptions and ensure commercial success. The project's focus is on effective management and communication strategies, ultimately providing a robust business continuity plan for the organization.

Running head: BUSINESS CONTINUITY PLAN
Business Continuity Plan: Project Management
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:

1BUSINESS CONTINUITY PLAN
Assignment 1: Project
Task 1
The process of business continuity is defined as capabilities of an association or
enterprise used to deliver critical activities based on preliminary defined levels throughout
disruptive incidents. Business continuity framework defines a detail document that an
organization should follow and maintain throughout to earn effective commercial benefits
(Torabi, Giahi and Sahebjamnia 2016). As per the Chief Financial Officer to achieve support for
business continuity management framework from relevant personnel at first a management team
should be formed. After that business impact analysis should be conducted. Resources are to be
identified to analyze potential gaps, explore as well as implement recovery strategies. For
managing the framework continuously the results must be tested considering present
recommendations. It will help to bring potential improvement in organizational activities.
The large manufacturing firm itself will sponsor the project and improvement
responsibilities will all be taken up by the newly appointed Chief Financial Officer (CFO)
(Segovia 2017). The CFO has to conduct a feasibility analysis and measure whether the
execution will be successful enough or not.
The governance structure for the management framework will include project manager,
CFO, finance manager, operation manager, system developer, tester, coder, application
programmer and a business analyst. The responsibilities to be served are elaborated in the below
section:
Stakeholders Responbilities

2BUSINESS CONTINUITY PLAN
Finance manager Responsible for developing a feasibility report
Operation
manager
Responsibility is to check whether all the operations are running accurately
or not (Smith 2016)
System developer Responsibility is to develop an automated system for managing business
continuity
Business analyst Responsible for developing effective business strategies
In order to manage business continuity framework and gain endorsement for the needful
resources, project manager must establish proper communication among the stakeholders. The
project team should use open communication to share information among all the involved parties
(Iwao and Marinov 2018). This approach gives opportunities to all the involved parties to
express their creativity and ideas in front of others. This approach gives transparency and helps
to avoid intra-team conflict as well.
For managing the framework supporting work environment has to be created. It will help
to keep all the employees dedicated to the assigned responsibilities. The project manager must
support and motivate the team members (Vlachos 2018). The manufacturing unit needs to
genuinely recognize employee accomplishment and take care of individuals. The expected
benefit has to be clear to the stakeholders so that company can pursue effective commercial and
operational growth.

3BUSINESS CONTINUITY PLAN
In order to integrate the operations and manage their functionalities considering
preliminary objectives a SAP ERP management system will be designed and developed. It will
give reliability, integrity, scalability and security to the manufacturing company.
For managing the business continuity framework the governance body of nominated
large manufacturing company have to develop a scope document and share it to all other project
associates (Zeng and Zio 2017). The project cannot be implemented unless it is approved by the
project manager and company CEO. The project manager will approve the management
framework and pass it over to the CEO. As soon as the CEO will approve the project the
company will make needful capital or investment needed to design and develop the SAP ERP
system.
Task 2
Once the project plan will be developed all related activities should be monitored
continuously. For each milestone, timeline and budget has to be allocated. It is duty of the
project manager to conduct periodic meeting and share status report to all the stakeholders
(Alharthi and Khalifa 2019). After completion of 25%, 50% and 75% of the project three
different status reports must be developed. It would let the stakeholders understand whether the
project is running according to the preliminary planning or not. The milestones for monitoring
the project are elaborated in the below section:
Milestones Start date Finish
date
Milestone 1: Cross checking the project schedule, budget, resources
and business strategies developed at the early stage of design and
16/03/2020 19/03/2020

4BUSINESS CONTINUITY PLAN
development
Milestone 2: Conducting meeting to make discussion on current
status of the project
2/04/2020 3/04/2020
Milestone 3: Design of effective report management system for the
SAP ERP project
17/05/2020 23/05/2020
Milestone 4: Ensure complete development guidelines based on
recommended continuous improvement plan
22/06/2020 27/05/2020
In order to conduct and complete the project on time and within assigned budget the
communication management plan that has to be conducted by the project manager and other
stakeholders are elaborated in the below section:
Purpose Who When Frequency Medium of
communication
Purpose is to conduct
discussion on project
resources, milestones and
individual’s
responsibility
Project manager,
operation manager
and resource
manager
24/03/2020 Monthly Face to face meeting
and conference and
email
Discussion on the gap
analysis results and
determine whether the
goals are being achieved
Project manager
and stakeholders
12/04/2020 Weekly Face to face meeting
and conference and
email

5BUSINESS CONTINUITY PLAN
or not
Discussion on how SAP
ERP can benefit the large
manufacturing company
Project manager
and team
20/05/2020 Weekly Face to face meeting
and conference and
email
Discussion on areas that
need improvement
Business analyst,
CFO and Project
manager
24/05/2020 Weekly Face to face meeting
and conference and
email
The success and failure of a project is dependent on performance of individuals and all
the stakeholders as a whole. If any one of the stakeholder failed to serve the expected
performance then the entire project may fail to meet the primary objectives and aims as well
(Labus et al. 2019). The benchmarks that will be used to analyze the performance of
stakeholders are elaborated in the below section:
 Accurate spectrum for stakeholder positioning
 Use of open communication while sharing creative ideas among each other
 High interest of the stakeholders
Before finalizing the business continuity plan for the large manufacturing company the
appointed project manager will consult with the project sponsor, finance manager and operation
manager as well (Xing and Zio 2016). It will help the stakeholders to understand whether the
new continuity plan is effective for the large manufacturing company or not. Consultation with
finance manager will let the project manager realize whether the project is feasible is not. On the

6BUSINESS CONTINUITY PLAN
other hand, after consulting manager will understand whether an ERP system can boosts up the
functions and operations or not.
Monitoring the framework is vital to minimize operational and functional disruptions. It
reduces the rate of risks and helps to retain the brand image of an organization.
Task 3
In order to analyze the reports on business continuity management framework the method
which specifically selected is rapid review. With this method already implemented policies,
prcatices and probable issues analysis will become easier. This method will help the project
manager and team to learn as well (Vuletic, Kalinic and Jurcevic 2019). Change implementation
will become easier through this approach. For effective learning and development exercise, this
method is beneficial than any other. This method is beneficial because it helps to identify
possible issues and helps to develop respective management strategies for each of the issues.
Project manager and team can easily identify the issues with project constraints in terms of cost,
time and scope.
In order to implement business continuity plan effective organizational changes and
communication strategy review is beneficial because it faster the response timing and make the
employees feel valuable. The rate of employee contribution gets increased and retention issues
get reduced (Butler et al. 2018). The ability to achieve set project goals and aims also becomes
easier. Change management review is essential because it will help to avoid over running budget,
over allocation of resources and schedule issues. It helps to identify specific factors that need
changes for the particular project in terms of schedule, budget, scope and resources.

7BUSINESS CONTINUITY PLAN
Based on pre and post project related activities the business continuity management
framework needs to be monitored. Continuous monitoring will help the project manager and
other stakeholders realize specific changes the project need an also the relative factors to be
considered to complete the project within assigned timeline and budget as well (Verma et al.
2017). Periodic monitoring will help the team to realize whether the project activities are all
running towards the expected direction, goals and objectives or not. If it is found that project is
running towards expectations then based on monitoring implementation of changes will also
become easier for the project manager.
It has been analyzed that the mere act of initiating a big business mostly comes with
intrinsic risks and problems. Unexpected project events and risks can be easily identified and
minimized with business impact assessment. It is responsibility of the finance manager to
develop a feasibility report before initiating the project. Probable issues of the business can be
identified through impact assessment approach. Commercial success of the large manufacturing
company is dependent on time and resources allocated for this. If resources will increase then the
budget and time will also increase according to the need.
Success of the manufacturing company is dependent on the roles and responsibilities
those would be played by individual project stakeholders. Before initiating any project the
finance manager first estimates the budget that the project would take to deliver expected
outcomes (Xing and Zio 2016). The planned budget and actual budget never comes equal for any
project. The variance is dependent on audit. The budget will be auditing and monitoring
continuously. Effective audit will let the project manager realize specific changes required for
successful delivery of the SAP ERP project. The typical project milestones are also needed to be
analyzed individually to improve commercial infrastructure.

8BUSINESS CONTINUITY PLAN

9BUSINESS CONTINUITY PLAN
References
Alharthi, M.N.A.N. and Khalifa, G.S., 2019. Business Continuity Management and Crisis
Leadership: An Approach to Re-Engineer Crisis Performance within Abu Dhabi Governmental
Entities. International Journal on Emerging Technologies, 10, pp.32-40.
Butler, M., Szwejczewski, M. and Sweeney, M., 2018. A model of continuous improvement
programme management. Production Planning & Control, 29(5), pp.386-402.
Iwao, S. and Marinov, M., 2018. Linking continuous improvement to manufacturing
performance. Benchmarking: An International Journal.
Labus, M., Despotović-Zrakić, M., Bogdanović, Z., Barać, D. and Popović, S., 2019. Adaptive e-
business continuity management: Evidence from the financial sector. Computer Science and
Information Systems, (00), pp.37-37.
Segovia, F., 2017. Developing a Framework for Business Continuity Management within Local
Government.
Smith, P.G., 2016. Development of a four stage continuous improvement framework to support
business performance in manufacturing SMEs.
Torabi, S.A., Giahi, R. and Sahebjamnia, N., 2016. An enhanced risk assessment framework for
business continuity management systems. Safety science, 89, pp.201-218.
Verma, A.K., Adams, S.G., Lin, C.Y., Escobales, N., Flory, I.V. and Isaac, L., 2017.
Institutionalizing continuous improvement plan in an engineering technology department-
Closing the loop.

10BUSINESS CONTINUITY PLAN
Vlachos, T., 2018. Certifiable Risk Management & Business Continuity approach in mining
industry. In Proceedings of the 4th World Congress on Mechanical, Chemical, and Material
Engineering (MCM'18), DOI (Vol. 10).
Vuletic, A., Kalinic, P. and Jurcevic, M., 2019. Business continuity management and strategic
resilience. Economic and Social Development: Book of Proceedings, pp.561-567.
Xing, J. and Zio, E., 2016, September. An integrated framework for business continuity
management of critical infrastructures.
Zeng, Z. and Zio, E., 2017. An integrated modeling framework for quantitative business
continuity assessment. Process Safety and Environmental Protection, 106, pp.76-88.