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?

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Business Continuity is

An ongoing program of activities

conducted in advance by an organization to
ensure its 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 organizations 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 communities. (Public Safety,
Emergency Response (ER)
Crisis Management (CM) EOC, Cabinet, external agencies, some or
Business Continuity (BC) all business and academic units)

Crisis Management--
Continuing activities to manage secondary
Level of Activity

issues arising from incident. (Cabinet, EOC,

CM
some business and academic units, some
external agencies)

ER
Business Continuity--
BC Ongoing actions to maintain or resume
instruction, research, and essential services
Time for campus constituents. (Cabinet, EOC,
business and academic units providing
critical functions)

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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 arent available?
(All Hazards Approach to Planningidentify resources in place
and necessary to rapidly restart each critical function)

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How we can do it:
Three Steps

Identify / Prioritize Develop Maintain

Determine critical Generate plans Act on,

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

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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
Must be continued under all circumstances
Cannot suffer a significant interruption
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CSULB Continuity Planning Tool

Award winning, FEMA-

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

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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 dont exist, what should be put in place?
Action Items (To Do Items) that can increase capacity for a rapid
restart, minimize impact of disaster events
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 were done?

Written plan(s) and related activities in place

that include approaches and indispensable information
necessary to recover your areas 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