NOVEMBER 2024CIOAPPLICATIONS.COM8CXO InsightsIN MY VIEWou have finished creating your company's recovery plans...now what? How do you know that the plans are robust, complete and viable during a crisis? By testing it, of course!Testing is a process for evaluating how practicable your plans are, and overall, how well your company is prepared for disruptions to its business. There are generally two ways to gain this understanding ­ through testing, exercising, and responding to an actual disaster event. If you do not exercise your plans, it limits the organizations' leaders' knowledge of their ability to respond, recover and restore business in the event of a major disruption. The more mature an organization is in its exercise management practices, the greater its success in recovering from a disaster.TEST VS EXERCISEAn exercise with key members to respond to a potential incident is a rehearsal of the response and necessary tasks for restoration. An exercise's intended goal is to demonstrate and assess the staff's Business Continuity Management (BCM) competence and capability related to the objectives and scope of the exercise. The intent of an exercise is to learn from the event to improve recovery plans.A test is a stand-alone event or component of an exercise where the goal is to demonstrate the recovery of a business or IT resource in response to a disruption. Tests typically are pass or fail types of events rather than a full assessment of competencies and capabilities.BENEFITS AND CHALLENGES OF TESTINGIt is better to uncover gaps in a controlled environment rather than during an actual crisis, although both will give you similar takeaways. Performance in an exercise offers crucial evidence to business and IT regarding the ability to recover in a crisis.Benefits· Identify gaps.· Ensure that there are adequate resources to perform response and recovery activities.Nancy Valente has 20 years of Business Continuity Management experience, mostly in financial services. She started her career in a small consulting firm. She was hired by an international leasing company as a part-time consultant developing BCPs, which grew into a full-time role developing a global Business Continuity program for 35 offices worldwide. Valente joined Freedom Mortgage in 2017 and has spent the last few years designing and implementing their Business Continuity program. Through this article, Nancy Valente emphasizes the critical importance of testing business continuity plans to ensure organizational resilience in the face of disruptions. Valente provides practical advice on what to test, the methods to use, and how to prepare for and follow up after tests. The article underscores the value of uncovering gaps in a controlled environment and offers guidance on building a robust testing program that evolves with organizational maturity.THE IMPORTANCE OF TESTING CONTINUITY PLANSYNANCY VALENTE, VP - ENTERPRISE BUSINESS CONTINUITY AT FREEDOM MORTGAGE, ONE OF THE LARGEST FULL-SERVICE, INDEPENDENT MORTGAGE COMPANIES, AND A TOP VETERANS ADMINISTRATION (VA) AND FEDERAL HOUSING ADMINISTRATION (FHA) LENDER IN THE U.S.Nancy Valente
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