Short answer
Business continuity prepares and tests practical responses that keep critical work operating through disruption. This catalog progresses from following and maintaining plans, to owning continuity for a workflow, to coordinating responses across interdependent services.
About Business continuity
Prepares and tests practical responses that keep critical work operating through disruption. Effective business continuity identifies essential outcomes, dependencies, fallback actions, decision owners, and the conditions for returning to normal work.
Use this competency for
- Roles that prepare, test, maintain, or coordinate continuity responses for critical work.
- Work where disruption requires documented fallback actions and cross-party decisions.
Do not use this competency for
- Roles that only follow emergency instructions and do not own continuity planning or testing.
Important distinctions
Operational risk
Operational risk identifies and treats possible process failures. Business continuity prepares how critical work will continue after disruption occurs.
Incident response
Incident response contains and resolves a specific event. Business continuity maintains essential outcomes while normal operations are unavailable.
Expectations by level
IC1
Maintains defined plans
Follows and maintains defined continuity procedures with guidance. Confirms assigned contacts and resources, records test results, and flags information that is missing or outdated.
Observable behaviors
- Updates assigned contacts, dependencies, and fallback instructions.
- Performs a defined continuity test step and records the result.
- Flags a plan assumption or resource that is no longer valid.
Examples
- Checks a fallback contact list and replaces an owner who has changed roles.
- Runs an assigned test step, records that access failed, and raises the gap to the plan owner.
IC2
Owns workflow continuity
Independently develops and tests continuity plans for a team or critical workflow. Maps dependencies, defines fallback actions and decision points, and closes practical gaps found through exercises or disruptions.
Observable behaviors
- Identifies the essential outcomes and dependencies of a workflow.
- Defines fallback actions, owners, communication paths, and return conditions.
- Runs a realistic exercise and records decisions and gaps.
- Revises the plan after test or disruption evidence.
Examples
- Designs a fallback for a critical unavailable system and tests whether the team can complete essential work.
- Finds during an exercise that two recovery actions need the same unavailable resource and revises the sequence.
IC3
Coordinates continuity across services
Leads continuity planning for interdependent teams or services under ambiguous disruption scenarios. Aligns priorities and decision ownership, tests cross-team responses, and establishes continuity practices others use.
Observable behaviors
- Maps dependencies and competing recovery priorities across services.
- Aligns teams on essential outcomes and decision authority during disruption.
- Designs exercises that expose cross-team assumptions and resource conflicts.
- Creates reusable standards for plans, tests, learning, and maintenance.
Examples
- Leads an exercise that reveals two services rely on the same fallback resource and coordinates a workable priority decision.
- During a disruption, makes recovery options and their consequences visible so owners can sequence critical work.