Over the next several weeks we will be sharing the Top 100 Tips for BCP Success. The areas we will cover are BCP Office, Metrics, Management Oversight, Budget, Business Impact Analysis, Crisis Management, Recovery Plans, Exercises, Training and Awareness, and the BCP Planner.
Top 10 Tips for BCP Metrics:
1. Adopt a standard – This will communicate to everyone involved in your BCP process the level of quality needed to achieve the desired results.
2. Measure best practices and recovery maturity – Quantifying these elements helps build the case for continued involvement and support.
3. If not documented, you can’t measure it – Your achievements will hold less value if you are unable to demonstrate what you have done. First step, document.
4. Derive roadmap for improvement from results – Using the metrics results to drive action will lead to noticeable improvements.
5. Determine minimum maturity level you must attain – Tailor your goals to align your BCP with your company’s needs.
6. Plan incremental improvement over time – Prioritizing improvements and integrating tasks with the overall company roadmap can result in better advancements long term.
7. Regularly update and present updated metrics – Scheduling discussions regarding progress, areas needing improvement and company goals is an important action to gain and maintain management support.
8. Focus on risk reduction and recovery capability first – These two components can spring your BCP maturity forward.
9. Measure yourself against the best in business – Often companies compare themselves to their industry alone. Measuring against the best in business gives a truer picture of your BCP maturity level.
10. Maintain historical information – It is important to learn from our past. You never know when you might need a key statistic or reference a learning opportunity.
 Next post… Top 10 Tips for Management Oversight
Michael Herrera
Michael Herrera is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of MHA. In his role, Michael provides global leadership to the entire set of industry practices and horizontal capabilities within MHA. Under his leadership, MHA has become a leading provider of Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery services to organizations on a global level. He is also the founder of BCMMETRICS, a leading cloud based tool designed to assess business continuity compliance and residual risk. Michael is a well-known and sought after speaker on Business Continuity issues at local and national contingency planner chapter meetings and conferences. Prior to founding MHA, he was a Regional VP for Bank of America, where he was responsible for Business Continuity across the southwest region.
