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Standards and Benchmarking Tools for Measuring Preparedness |
Is Your Organization Prepared?
How Prepared do you Need to be?
Should your Organization get Certified?
What Training do I need to Prepare my Organization for Certification?
How can I Benchmark my Organization to Measure my Preparedness?
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This month's ICORrespondence Newsletter investigates the subject of the new U.S. Private Sector Preparedness Voluntary Certification, the Standards approved to meet this certification, Benchmarking Tools to evaluate your preparedness, and training to meet your certification and benchmarking needs.
And...share your opinion with us by joining the ICOR Linkedin Network! Search for us under The International Consortium for Organizational Resilience. Let us know your thoughts on the PS-Prep Program, the standards accepted, and the usefulness of benchmarking. Also, what does this program mean to multi-national organizations and those outside the U.S.? Does it matter?
And if you have questions, don't hesitate to call or send an email (they still work!)
Sincerely,
Lynnda Nelson, President
The International Consortium for Organizational Resilience
Lynnda@theicor.org
866.765.8321 US/Canada +1630.705.0910 International Calls |
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| DHS Announces New Standards for Private Sector Preparedness |
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced the adoption June 15, 2010 of the final standards for the Voluntary Private Sector Preparedness Accreditation and Certification Program (PS-Prep)-a major milestone in DHS' implementation of a program recommended by the 9/11 Commission to improve private sector preparedness for disasters and emergencies as mandated by U.S. Public Law 53-110 Title IX.
"Private organizations across the country-from businesses to universities to non-profit organizations-have a vital role to play in bolstering our disaster preparedness and response capabilities," said Secretary Napolitano. "These new standards will provide our private sector partners with the tools they need to enhance the readiness and resiliency of our nation."
PS-Prep is a partnership between DHS and the private sector that enables private entities to receive emergency preparedness certification from a DHS accreditation system created in coordination with the private sector.
The following standards have been accepted for compliance:
- National Fire Protection Association 1600 - 2007and 2010 versions-Standard on Disaster/Emergency Management and Business Continuity Programs. (Download for Free - 2007) (Download for Free - 2010)
- British Standard 25999-2:2007- Business Continuity Management. (Download at Cost)
- ASIS SPC. 1-2009-Organizational Resilience: Security Preparedness, and Continuity Management Systems- Requirements with Guidance for Use. (Download for Free)
PS-Prep will raise the level of private sector preparedness through a number of means, including:
- establishing a system for DHS to adopt private sector preparedness standards;
- encouraging creation of those standards;
- developing a method for a private sector entity to obtain a certification of conformity with a particular DHS-adopted private sector standard, and encouraging such certification; and
- making preparedness standards adopted by DHS more widely available.
To learn more about the PS-Prep program download this FAQ. |
| Why Should my Business Become Certified? | 
Certification helps you to demonstrate to your stakeholders that your business is run effectively and that it will continue to do so in the event of a disruption.
The process of achieving and maintaining the Business Continuity Management (BCM) certification also helps ensure that you are continually improving and refining your BCM activities. The regular assessment process will also improve staff responsibility, commitment and motivation.
Certification improves overall performance, removes uncertainty and widens market opportunities. It will prove to your customers that you can be trusted to deliver. Certification to BS 25999 creates an opportunity to reduce the burdens of internal and external audits from your key customers.
Despite all these internal reasons, the reason for many companies will be that a major customer requires some evidence of competent BCM performance.
If this is your reason then don't panic; BCM isn't as complicated or as difficult as you might think. Also you don't have to be an expert in any of the other management systems such as ISO 9001 (Quality management systems) or ISO 14001 (Environmental management systems) - the BCM system can be implemented alone.
However because it follows the simple Plan, Do, Check, Act cycle of other management systems if you are already a user of ISO 9001 and/or ISO 14001 then getting started with the BCM system will be very familiar to you.
To learn more about the PS-Prep program download this FAQ. |
Measuring BCM Preparedness - Benchmarking & Auditing
| The Business Continuity Maturity Model ®
The Business Continuity Maturity Model ® (BCMM®) was developed in 2004 with the support of Virtual Corporation and in collaboration with professionals, representing Public Sector and Private Industry BC Practitioners, BC Industry Trade and Education Leaders, BC Professional Services Providers, and Virtual Corporation Staff.
The purpose of the (BCMM®) is to provide a meaningful tool to objectively and consistently measure the organization's disaster-readiness or state-of-preparedness.
The Model meets the following goals:
1. Provides a diagnostic tool for objective evaluation of business continuity program effectiveness.
2. Generates consistent data from which meaningful benchmark analyses can be drawn.
3. Answers the following key questions for senior management:
a. Where are we now?
What level of BC program maturity do we currently possess?
b. What do we want to be?
What level of BC program maturity is our ultimate goal?
c. What path do we follow to get there?
How should we progress most effectively to the next Level? e.g., Let's crawl, then walk, then run.
In addition to providing the benchmarking data, two different assessments can be completed: Review Assessment based on more informal data collecting and an Audit Assessment based on a detailed review and analysis of supporting documentation. The Audit Assessment is aligned to the BS 25999, ASIS SPC-1, and NFPA 1600 standards. The Assessment process provides valuable information on how to improve your program by generating the data necessary to create a multi-year improvement plan along with the budget required to do so. The BCMM® has both a public version accessible by anyone and a private version accessible to licensed assessors only. The public model is a downloadable pdf that can be found at www.virtual-corp.net. The private version, accessible only by licensed assessors, includes access to the Model, the Assessment Master Questionnaire, the Assessment Software, the BCMM Calculator and Assessment, and the Proofs Acquisition and Analysis Checklist. The training for becoming is licensed assessor is offered by ICOR. For a complete description of the 2 day course and the upcoming schedule go to www.theicor.org. |
Measuring Preparedness - Benchmarking Resilience
| A study of the resilience of organisations in the Auckland Region (www.resorgs.org.nz was published this summer by The Resilient Organisations Research Group (ResOrgs), a multi-disciplinary team of 17 researchers and practitioners that is New Zealand based and a collaboration between top New Zealand research Universities and key industry players, including the University of Canterbury and the University of Auckland.
The purpose of this report is to provide an interim summary of the results of the Benchmark Resilience research project for the Auckland region. A more detailed analysis of the results will be made available on the www.resorgs.org.nz in late 2010.
Organisational and community resilience are two sides of the same coin - without resilient organisations a community will be less resilient. Despite the benefits of being resilient, organisations often struggle to prioritise resilience and to link resilience to disaster with resilience during business as usual.
The purpose of this research is to develop a web-based organisational resilience measurement and benchmarking tool which can provide organisations with information to help make a business case for resilience. Initial results from this research indicate a positive relationship between organisational resilience and indicators of business performance.
For more information check out their website at www.resorgs.org.nz or watch for more information coming later this fall as the benchmarking tool becomes accessible to the public. |
| World Class BCM Training for Certification Preparedness & BCM Program Development | Essentials of Business Continuity Management (BCM 2000) provides you with knowledge to develop an auditable and actionable business continuity program for your organization. This course is the critical starting point to developing a program that can be certified by BS 25999 parts 1 and 2.
Essentials of Business Continuity Management provides the foundation necessary for new or current professionals interested in either developing a career in Business Continuity Management, seeking certification, or for those professionals responsible for developing an auditable and executable business continuity program for their organization. It is designed to expose the participant to all aspects of a holistic BCM program and to be a solid "how to" guide for building a business continuity program for all types of organizations.
The course is comprised of 10 modules that can be purchases singlely or as a package via eLearning and self-study coursebooks.. Included in the course materials are: Course reading materials, Case study, Open for Business Toolkit, Multi-media (except for Self-Study), Course review activities to test for comprehension, Practice exam questions to test for certification exam readiness, Email access to the BCM Expert for questions on the course material and more!
This one course prepares you for DRII certification, BCI certification, ICOR CORS certification, and is aligned with BS 25999 parts 1 and 2, NFPA 1600 2007 and 2010, and the 10 Professional Practices. This course is also offered as Seminar 1 - Foundations of Business Continuity Management in Norwich University's Masters of Science in Business Continuity Management (MSBC). 10 Course Series Includes the Following Topics: - BCM Program Development
- The Business Impact Analysis
- The Risk Assessment
- Strategy Development
- Writing and Maintaining the Business Continuity Plan
- Writing the Incident Response Plan
- Writing the Crisis Management & Communication Plan
- Writing the ICT Plan (Information & Communication Technology Plan)
- Embedding the Culture of BCM in your Organization (Awareness & Training)
- Exercising Your BCM Capablity
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If you would like to submit an article or presentation for a future ICORrespondence Newsletter submit it to Lynnda@theicor.org.
Sincerely,
Lynnda Nelson, President
The International Consortium for Organizational Resilience | |
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