Start with outcomes
The unit of analysis is the product, service or activity the organization needs to sustain—not the disaster scenario.
Understand disruption over time
Impacts usually change as an outage continues. A one-hour interruption may be manageable while a multi-day interruption creates contractual, financial or customer consequences.
Choose strategies before writing plans
Plans work better when alternate people, places, suppliers, technology and work methods have already been evaluated.
Improve continuously
Exercises, incidents, audits and organizational changes should feed back into the continuity program.
Business continuity is organization-specific. Recovery priorities, legal duties, safety requirements, contracts, insurance terms and technical recovery methods should be validated by the responsible people in the organization.