Integration Management
How the BC plans are developed, executed, and changed over time to reflect changing business requirements.

Scope Management
Scope Management looks at the business needs of disaster recovery vs. business continuity planning. The scope of the recovery plan is defined to include not only what is included, but what is not included. The scope of the plan is continually reviewed and contains change control elements to insure only approved and budgeted changes occur to the scope of the plan.

Time Management
Knowing which activities have to be performed, what sequence they have to occur in, how long they take, who has to perform them, and schedule development for who reports where and when are all critical success factors for defining plan success or failure.

Cost Management
Resource planning (including human, facility, data, physical records, etc.) and associated cost estimating and budgeting are defined and approved. Ongoing costs to maintain, test, and improve the plan are included as well.

Quality Management
In any recovery, there will be problems. Plans to deal with quality problems will be key to customer understanding and satisfaction. How quality problems are identified and corrected before they leave the door at a temporary supplier or facility are problems that must be addressed in advance.

Human Resource Management
Any continuity plan must have executive sponsors, senior management involvement from technical and business units, and line managers to supply detailed information on recovery processes. Generally, there are staff acquisition or reassignments needed to make sure ongoing planning and testing occurs on schedule. There are also team assignments that need to be made to allocate people to fill key roles on a temporary basis. Like any other technical skill, there are possible training classes needed to insure staff and management are up to date on the latest tools and techniques.

Communications Management
As in Project Management, communications make up a large part of any continuity plan. Communications are essential in every phase of plan development but critical if a disaster is ever declared. All of these communications with the press, key customers, key stockholders, and the general public need to be planned and documented well in advance of any disaster. Scripts for employees to follow, forms for press releases, advertising for television, radio, and newspapers are examples of necessary communication forms to develop. Performance reporting of testing, reporting of developmental and ongoing costs, and administrative closure all fall into this category.

Risk Management
Without a doubt, risk management is the most complicated part of any business continuity or disaster recovery planning. Risk tolerances for all of the stakeholders must be considered and incorporated into the plan. Risks must be identified, analyzed, and categorized according to their severity and potential impact to the business. Focus must remain on the customers and how a disaster can impact them. Qualitative and quantitative risk analysis should be performed on all identified risks to determine probability and impact. Historical information from other incidents, expert opinions and simulations all contribute to help determine what needs to be addressed and when. Risks change over time and how they change must be monitored and controlled. Some risks may become less severe over time and new ones may emerge. These changing risks must be accounted for and included in future planning and testing.

Procurement Management
The purchase of products and services is an integral part of all planning. Which recovery facilities will be used, which vendors will be selected, what kinds of contracts the vendors require, contract administration and interpretation in the event of a disaster all need to be planned in advance. Terms and conditions of contracts become critical in a disaster and methods of working through problems must be established with each vendor in advance.

"OPM3," "PMI," and "PMP" are registered marks of the Project Management Institute, Inc.