Business Continuity Programme Design and Recovery Assurance Training Course

Programme Summary

Business continuity programme design and recovery assurance is a five-day training course for senior leaders at strategic level, culminating in a business continuity programme blueprint for their organisation. Many organisations hold continuity plans that were never tested, rest on outdated impact data or ignore critical suppliers, so recovery fails when it is needed. The approach builds the continuity system step by step, from scope and impact analysis to strategies, plans, exercises and audit. Mars Training Centre UK delivers this programme in business continuity programme design.

The Business Case

Disruption from technology failure, loss of a site, supplier collapse or staff unavailability is a question of when, not if. Organisations that know which activities matter most, how long they can be interrupted and how they will be recovered limit financial loss and keep commitments to customers and regulators. Leaders who can design and assure that capability give boards confidence based on evidence rather than documents.

• Recovery Time Performance: Improves when recovery objectives are set from impact data and proven in exercises.
• Financial and Contractual Exposure: Falls as prioritised activities and key suppliers have funded recovery options.
• Audit and Assurance Findings: Reduce when the continuity system is measured, audited and reviewed by management.

Principles and Evidence Base

• ISO 22301:2019 Business Continuity Management Systems Requirements: Provides the clause structure for scope, analysis, strategies, plans, exercises and evaluation across Sessions 1 to 5.
• ISO/TS 22317:2021 Guidelines for Business Impact Analysis: Guides the setting of MTPD, RTO, RPO and MBCO in Session 2.
• BCI Good Practice Guidelines: Supply the practitioner lifecycle used to design and validate the programme in Sessions 3 and 4.

Intended Participants

• Executives who own operational resilience and report it to boards or risk committees.
• Leaders responsible for setting continuity policy, scope and investment priorities.
• Heads of technology who own disaster recovery for critical systems and data.
• Senior managers who must keep essential services running across sites and suppliers.

The programme serves banking and insurance, energy and utilities, healthcare, telecommunications and public services.

Learning Outcomes

1. Participants will be able to diagnose gaps in an existing continuity programme against ISO 22301:2019 requirements.
2. Participants will be able to construct a business impact analysis that sets MTPD, RTO, RPO and MBCO for prioritised activities.
3. Participants will be able to evaluate recovery strategies for people, sites, technology and suppliers on cost and capability.
4. Participants will be able to design business continuity and IT disaster recovery plans that teams can execute.
5. Participants will be able to plan an exercise programme that proves recovery capability over time.
6. Participants will be able to justify continuity performance to management through audit and review evidence.

Programme Structure

Day 1: Business Continuity Programme Foundations

What must a continuity management system cover, and who owns it?

• ISO 22301:2019 Structure and Key Clauses
• Programme Scope, Policy and Objectives
• Roles, Governance and Top Management Duties
• Lessons From Recovery Failures in Finance and Utilities
• Continuity Programme Gap Assessment

Day 2: Business Impact Analysis and Risk Assessment

Which activities matter most, and how long can they stop?

• ISO/TS 22317:2021 Business Impact Analysis Method
• Prioritised Activities and Dependency Mapping
• MTPD, RTO, RPO and MBCO Setting
• Continuity Risk Assessment and Single Points of Failure
• Impact Data Validation With Process Owners

Day 3: Recovery Strategies and Solutions

How will people, premises, technology and suppliers be recovered?

• Workforce Relocation and Remote Working Options
• Alternate Site and Workspace Arrangements
• IT Disaster Recovery Architecture and Data Backup
• Supplier Continuity Requirements and Due Diligence
• Cost and Capability Comparison of Recovery Options

Day 4: Plans, Exercises and Performance Evaluation

How are plans written, tested and proven to work?

• Business Continuity Plan Structure and Activation Criteria
• IT Disaster Recovery Runbooks
• Exercise Types: Walk-Through, Tabletop and Live Recovery
• Internal Audit of the Continuity System
• Management Review and Corrective Action

Day 5: Applying Business Continuity Programme Design

How are the elements combined into a blueprint ready for approval?

• Applying the Gap Assessment to a Participant Organisation
• Setting Recovery Objectives for Priority Services
• Selecting Strategies Within a Budget Constraint
• Peer Review of Exercise and Audit Plans
• Business Continuity Programme Blueprint Presentation

Methodology

The programme relies on structured exercises using participants' own services and systems, supported by cases from banking, utilities and healthcare. Participants run impact interviews, set recovery objectives, compare strategies, draft plan sections and test them in a tabletop exercise before peers acting as auditors.

• Suggested activity: Running a business impact interview for a payments or billing process.
• Suggested activity: Choosing a recovery strategy for a data centre outage under budget limits.
• Suggested activity: Conducting a tabletop exercise on the loss of a critical supplier.

Capstone Output

Each participant completes a business continuity programme blueprint for their organisation. It contains scope and policy, a business impact analysis summary with recovery objectives, selected strategies, plan outlines, a three-tier exercise schedule and audit and review arrangements, ready for executive approval.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is business continuity programme design training suitable for senior leaders?

Yes. It is designed for heads of risk, resilience, operations and technology who own continuity outcomes. It assumes management responsibility but no prior continuity qualification.

Which standards underpin business continuity programme design in this programme?

It rests on ISO 22301:2019 for the management system, ISO/TS 22317:2021 for business impact analysis and the BCI Good Practice Guidelines for practitioner lifecycle methods.

How is the business continuity programme blueprint used at work?

It becomes the plan for building or maturing your continuity system, ready to table with executives and to guide teams through analysis, strategy, exercises and audit.

How does business continuity programme design differ from a crisis leadership programme?

It concentrates on building and proving the continuity system and technical recovery, rather than on executive command and decision-making during a crisis.