Glossary of terms

Many of these terms are taken from the International Standard for Business Continuity Activation

The implementation of business continuity procedures, activities and plans in response to an incident

Activation

The implementation of business continuity procedures, activities and plans in response to an incident – also known as invocation

Backup

The process by which data, electronic or paper based, is copied in some form so as to be available and used if the original data from which it is originated is lost, destroyed or corrupted

Battle Box / Emergency pack

A container – often literally a box or briefcase – in which equipment/data is stored so as to be immediately available in an incident

BS25999 -1

International Standard for Business Continuity Management (BCM)

Business Continuity Management (BCM)

A holistic management process that identifies potential impacts that threaten an organisation and provides a framework for building resilience with the capability for an effective response that safeguards the interests of its key stakeholders, reputation, brand and value creating activities

Business Continuity Management lifecycle

The complete set of activities and processes in BCM divided into various stages that are necessary to manage business continuity

Business Continuity Plan (BCP)

A clearly defined and documented plan for use at the time of a Business Continuity Incident. Typically a plan will cover all the key personnel, resources, services and actions required to manage the BCM process

Business Continuity Management Policy

A policy which sets out the process and principles of BCM

Business Impact Analysis (BIA)

The analysis which shows the impacts, effects and loss that might occur if there were an impact to the organisation/team. The findings from a BIA are used to make decision about which mitigations and business continuity strategies should be adopted. The BIA will feed into the BCP

Call Tree

A structured cascade process that enables a list of persons/roles to be contacted

Command and Control

Emergency management – Quorum and planning group hierarchy

Function checklist

Contributing departments to the business continuity management plan

Incident

Any event that may be, or may lead to, a business interruption, disruption, loss and/or crisis

Incident Management

The process by which an organisation responds to and controls an incident using emergency response procedures

Invocation

(see activation)

Maximum Tolerable Period of Disruption (MTPD)

This is the maximum period of time that an organisation can tolerate disruption to a service/product. After this time the organisation’s viability will be irreparably damaged

Recovery Time Objective (RTO)

The time by which critical activities must be recovered.

This will come out of the BIA