The Tripwires of free Business Continuity Plan Templates
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Why pay for a business continuity consultancy services when free templates are available?
When you download a free business continuity plan template, you are on your own - no support, no guidance when you have a question or need some clarification. If business continuity is not your "day job", a template can be confusing (and none of the free templates let you see them before they have been downloaded). You'll have no idea how "user-friendly" the template is until you try to to use it.
A "free" business continuity plan template is not necessarily a "good" business continuity plan template: here are a few considerations, based on the experience of others, to think about before you make your choice.
Is it designed for non-specialists?
People use templates because they are not specialists in business continuity and want a straightforward, quick route to developing a professional business continuity plan. Building a BCP is never as simple as "filling in the blanks"
Questions need to be answered, options considered and decisions need to made arise along the way.
Flexibility to adapt to purpose
The vast majority of free business continuity plan templates are provided as a single document that does not take into account how different sections of a business continuity plan need different tools and hence different formats. For instance risk and impact assessments are best supported by spreadsheets to hold tabular information and produce dynamic graphical information. PowerPoint is helpful for creating awareness programmes for the wider organisation. Narrative based documents support audit & compliance review and checklists form a helpful reference in pressirised situations. This kind of flexibility rarely found in free business continuity plan templates
Content Organisation
Free business continuity plan templates cram all business continuity plan information into a single document - this creates an unwieldy document that is difficult to maintain. Cramming content relating to policy, priorities, communications strategies and response plans in one document creates a large, cumbersome document that is difficult to maintain - particularly when some parts of the business continuity plan has to be held by several people and not all sections are relevant to them. Most importantly, the "plan" will be of limited use in supporting response to a major incident - which is one of the main reasons for creating a business continuity plan!
Is support & guidance available
It's unrealistic to give someone a business continuity plan template and expect them to create a credible business continuity plan for their organisation without some guidance in the form of training. Many people look to use a Business Continuity Plan Template to help them quickly get to grips with the principles of business continuity planning and management and a bland template on its own can raise more questions than it answers.
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Evaluating and Using Business Continuity Plan Templates
Business Continuity Plan templates have their place and if you feel this is the right way for you, the links below liwill help you make an informed choice
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How a business continuity plan template can help build a quality, compliant plan
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How to evaluate and choose a business continuity plan template
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