Business Continuity Planning

at CSULB

Business Continuity Services

California State University, Long
Beach

CSULB, 2008
Topics

-- What is business continuity?

-- Why is it important?
-- What are the key questions
continuity planning addresses?

2
Business Continuity is…

An ongoing program of activities

conducted in advance by an organization to ensure
it’s prepared to continue its
mission-critical functions when an adverse event
occurs…

...sometimes called “continuity of operations”...

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Importance of Preparing

Planning provides resource backup / alternatives

– If staff unavailable – who will do the work?
– If a system or records are gone – how do we operate?
– If a specific building cannot be occupied – where do we
go?
Planning creates routines
– Routines create repetition and normalcy
– Normalcy generates calm instead of panic
Planning reduces the impact of adverse events and
boosts capacity to rapidly restart an organization’s
critical functions
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Emergency Preparedness /
Business Continuity

 Emergency Preparedness —
Preparation and planning to cope directly with
hazards and crisis-events, protect people and
property

 Business Continuity —
Preparation and planning to continue teaching,
research, and other mission-critical functions despite
crisis-events
– CSULB Goal: Continue critical functions as soon as
possible and within no longer than 30 days.

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 CSULB Response Spectrum for Disaster Events

Emergency Response--
Initial actions to recognize/declare
incident and protect CSULB
people, property, and surrounding
Emergency Response
Crisis
(ER) Management communities. (Public Safety, EOC,
(CM)
Business Continuity Cabinet, external agencies, some
(BC) or all business and academic
units)
Level of Activity

Crisis Management--
Continuing activities to manage
CM
secondary issues arising from
incident. (Cabinet, EOC, some
ER
business and academic units,
BC some external agencies)

Time Business Continuity--

Ongoing actions to maintain or
resume instruction, research, and
essential services for campus
constituents. (Cabinet, EOC,
business and academic units
providing critical functions) 6
Answer Central Questions

Overall, continuity planning addresses two key

questions:

1. What are the critical functions of your

organization?

2. How will each critical function be continued

at sufficient levels if essential people,
building(s), or infrastructure elements aren’t
available?
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(All Hazards Approach to Planning—identify
How we can do it:
Three Steps

Identify / Develo Maintai

Prioritize p n

Determine Generate Act on,

critical plans Communicat
functions, their (Using CSULB e, Test,
priority Continuity Update plan
categories, lead Planning Tool)
content
units and
representatives

8
Guidelines for Determining
Critical Functions

• Identify them in terms of functions and

services,
rather than processes or department names

• A critical functions has one or more of these

attributes:
• Has direct, immediate effect in preventing loss of life,
personal injury, or loss of property
• Is absolutely essential for teaching or research
• Provides vital support to critical function(s) of another
dept., unit, organization
• Is required by law 9
•
CSULB Continuity Planning Tool

 Award winning, FEMA-

funded, online
planning tool THE
 Developed by UC-
Berkeley, designed for CSULB
CONTINUITY PLANNING TOOL
higher education
organizations
 Adopted for use by all
UC campuses, UC
Medical Centers
 Answer series of
questions using web-
based form, produce a
department-based
Build your continuity plan:

1. What are the essential resources (people, facilities, and

infrastructure/systems/equipment for “Critical Function
n”?

2. If essential resources for “Critical Function n” are not

available,
what alternatives exist?

3. If alternatives do not exist, what should be put in place?11

Describe capacity and needs for
restarting each critical function

1. What are the essential resources for “Critical Function n”?

Vital records, equipment / systems, people,

communication tools, etc.
2. If essential resources for “Critical Function n” are not
available,
what alternatives exist?
Line of succession, alternate work locations, copies
of vital records, alternate communication,
alternate processes/workarounds, alternate human
resources / vendors, IT recovery approaches, etc.
3. If alternatives resources don’t exist, what should be put in
Campus and division project timeline

 Phase 1: Identify critical functions Spring 2008

 Phase 2: Develop plans Summer-Fall 2008
 Phase 3: Evaluate dependencies and prioritize
action items 2009
How long will it take?

 Department Planning
 Approximately a 3 month project – longer time frames do not
produce better plans
 Actual staff hours are small because tool uses fill-in-the-blank approach
 Mostly “white space”
 Critical function team members often have information in their heads
 Data entry 2 hours; training on tool 1 hour
 Who should plan?
 Upper/middle: Key functional directors and managers, asst. directors,
asst. deans, HR managers, IT Managers, etc.
 Strategies for completing
 Let the tool guide the discussion with team members engaged in
planning
 Little-or-no homework; instead thoughtful consideration of issues
 Ongoing maintenance required
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How do we know we’re done?

 Written plan(s) and related activities in

place
that include approaches and indispensable information
necessary to recover your area’s critical functions
 Maintenance calendar established for
periodic plan updates, tests, and sharing plan contents
with relevant personnel
 Maintenance conducted (taking action on “to
do” items and testing, revising and communicating
plan contents)
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BUSINESS CONTINUITY SERVICES
CONTACT INFORMATION

Cathy Gottlieb
Business Continuity Specialist
Brotman Hall 320
562/ 985-7148
gottlieb@csulb.edu

Mishelle Laws
AVP, Quality
Improvement
Brotman Hall 320
562/ 985-8356
mlaws@csulb.edu

CSULB, 2008