Practical resourcesOriginal working guide · October 2026
05 / Risk Management
Rehearse the first continuity decision.
Choose one essential service and a plausible interruption. Walk through the decisions the team would face before recovery is assured. Record gaps as work to resolve, not as a failed exercise.
Use before A tabletop exercise or review of a business continuity plan.
Define the service that must continue.
Describe the minimum acceptable delivery, who depends on it, and how the consequences of interruption worsen over time.
Make the disruption specific.
Name the unavailable people, system, facility or supplier. State which information is reliable and which assumptions participants must test.
Find the first consequential choice.
Who can activate the response, commit resources or change a customer promise? Identify the deputy and escalation route if the usual decision-maker cannot be reached.
Test the fallback.
Follow the proposed alternative through its dependencies. Check capacity, access, data, communications and the people needed to operate it. A named backup is not evidence that it will work.
Agree how recovery will be demonstrated.
Specify the checks required before normal service resumes. Assign each gap to an owner and set a date to retest the part of the response that changed.
Leave withA record of decisions, authority and dependencies that need strengthening, with an agreed retest.
Practical resourcesOriginal working guide · October 2026
05 / Working record
Rehearse the first continuity decision.
Use concise statements. Mark what is known, what is assumed and what remains unresolved.
Essential service and minimum delivery
Disruption and uncertain information
First decision, authority and deputy
Fallback dependencies and unresolved gaps
Evidence required to resume service
Action owners and retest date
Close the discussion with an agreed owner and review point. Keep the supporting evidence with this record.