An area often neglected in the service management arena is the IT Business Continuity Management Process (ITBCM). Let’s face it; most organisations are concerned with dealing with their Incidents or Changes as a top priority. Preparing for “what if” scenarios therefore can easily get pushed back on the ITIL process “To Do” list.

When creating an IT Business Continuity plan, the scenarios of what to prepare for can be a daunting and time consuming task. How do you know if you have covered off all the angles of a possible disaster? How do you gauge what the current staff would do, during such a situation? This is not something you can easily pull together between a selected group of stakeholders locked in a room to discuss.

What I have seen work incredibly well was when an IT Business Continuity Manager used an IT department conference to go through various ITBCM scenarios and what to do if that situation were to happen, in addition to what the staff should be doing as part of their process. He used the attendee’s to create scenarios in which IT Business Continuity was required and how best to deal with that situation.

This was a very clever way of using the audience to perform work that would have been time consuming and not carried out as well without the aid of 150 people working together and thinking about their business continuity solutions. After the conference everyone was clear on what the process was about and what would be happening in future. I would recommend using this method to anyone looking to create or develop their ITBCM plan further.

Feedback and comments are always welcome!