Question:
Question 11: (Click here to View this Q&A Series)
- What is the primary role and purpose of a steering Committee for Company-wide BCDR planning?
- What representation/membership should reside on the steering committee to ensure the steering committee charter can be fulfilled?
Any insights, opinions, best practices, lessons learned, links to articles would be greatly appreciated.
Answer 1:
Typically, a BCP Steering Committee would support a BCP/DR initiative ongoing (and not dissolve once the BCPs and/or BCP program office build is complete if you are just starting out). This team should be comprised of employees (leaders) empowered to make decisions on behalf of your company; there should be representation for every line of business within your company on the BCP Steering Committee. The BCP Steering Committee should be comprised of a team leader, a representative from each line of business, other support groups representatives (such as audit, security,etc), and have an executive sponsor. In any event, I would try to keep members to under a dozen or less members if at all possible.
Within your company, you may already know of a team of leaders established to address another task altogether. For instance, for a large energy company we are working with, there are two entities that exist that could also act as the BCP Steering Committee. First, there is a group known as the Environmental Health and Safety Committee which meets on a quarterly basis to address safety and security issues. Secondly, there is another committee recommended to take on BCP and it is the existing Risk Committee. Both of these committees have enterprise wide responsibilities and make decisions for the entire company. Either of these committees meet the criteria outlined above to successfully act as the BCP Steering Committee. I always suggest that the BCP Committee Chairperson responsibilities be rotated on an annual basis so that other members of the team get to have just as much fun!!! Suggested responsibilities of the BCP Steering Committee:
1. Maintain the ongoing support and viability for
the BCP Program.
2. Support the change management occurring as a result of the BCP implementation
3. Make global decisions that affect BCP enterprisewide.
I hope this helps. Good luck.
Jean Bennajma, CBCP
Director, Business Continuity Services
Business Pathfinders, Inc.
(804)301-6403
The responses reflect the views of the individual EAB member, and do not necessarily reflect the views of their employers, the DRJ, or the EAB as a whole.