ISO 22301 Business Continuity Management System Implementation Training Course

Course overview

A business continuity management system (BCMS) cannot be reduced to an emergency plan kept on a shared drive. Organisations need a repeatable ISO 22301-based method to identify critical products and services, understand disruption dependencies, set recovery priorities, and prove that continuity arrangements will work under pressure. This course addresses the practical challenge facing HSE, risk, resilience and operational leaders: translating a standard into governed, tested arrangements that protect people, maintain essential operations and meet customer, regulatory and contractual expectations.

Participants work through the full implementation lifecycle of ISO 22301:2019, from organisational context and leadership commitment through business impact analysis (BIA), risk assessment, continuity strategy selection, plan development, exercising and performance evaluation. They learn to define recovery time objectives (RTOs), recovery point objectives (RPOs), maximum acceptable outage (MAO), minimum business continuity objectives (MBCO), dependencies and resource requirements. The course also covers documented information, internal audit preparation, management review inputs, corrective action and readiness for certification.

Delivery combines instructor-led interpretation of ISO clauses with facilitated workshops, realistic disruption scenarios and structured templates. Participants build an implementation roadmap for a case organisation and apply the same tools to their own operating environment, where appropriate. They leave with a practical BCMS implementation pack: BIA and risk assessment worksheets, a continuity strategy decision framework, plan architecture, exercise design and phased implementation action plan.

The course is designed for professionals who already work with risk, operational resilience, emergency preparedness, quality, HSE or management systems and now need to lead, support or assure an ISO 22301 implementation.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Interpret ISO 22301:2019 clauses and translate them into a BCMS implementation workplan
• Define BCMS scope, interested parties, legal obligations and continuity objectives using a context analysis
• Conduct a business impact analysis that establishes MAO, RTO, RPO, MBCO and recovery resource requirements
• Assess disruption risks and dependency vulnerabilities using a structured risk assessment method
• Evaluate and select business continuity strategies using cost, capability, recovery and residual-risk criteria
• Develop business continuity plan architecture, response procedures and incident communication arrangements
• Design scenario-based exercises and post-exercise evaluation records that test continuity capability
• Prepare internal audit evidence, management review inputs and corrective action records for BCMS conformity

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Business Continuity Managers — who need to establish or improve an ISO 22301-aligned BCMS
• HSE Managers — who integrate emergency preparedness, incident response and organisational resilience controls
• Risk and Operational Resilience Managers — who must connect enterprise risk findings to recoverable operations
• Quality and Integrated Management System Managers — who implement auditable ISO-based management systems
• Internal Auditors — who need to assess BCMS conformity, evidence and corrective action effectiveness
• Operations and Facilities Managers — who own critical activities, sites, suppliers and recovery resources

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have practical familiarity with their organisation’s services, operating processes, key suppliers and incident or emergency arrangements. Experience with risk registers, management-system documentation, internal audits or business continuity plans is useful because the course moves quickly into implementation decisions and workshop outputs. Participants should understand basic risk concepts such as likelihood, consequence, controls and residual risk. A laptop with spreadsheet and document-editing software is recommended for exercises. Prior ISO 22301 training, formal auditing qualifications, specialist crisis-management experience and certification-body experience are not required.

Training methodology

The five-day programme uses short clause-led instructor sessions followed by guided application. Participants analyse a realistic multi-site disruption case, map critical activities and dependencies, calculate recovery priorities, compare continuity strategies and draft plan components. Small-group workshops use BIA, risk, strategy and exercise templates that mirror workplace deliverables. The instructor reviews decisions against ISO 22301 requirements and common audit findings. On the final day, each participant converts workshop outputs into a phased implementation plan for their own organisation or a nominated case environment.

Course outline

Day 1: BCMS foundations, context and governance

• Purpose, structure and terminology of ISO 22301:2019
• BCMS principles and the Plan-Do-Check-Act model
• Organisational context and interested-party requirement analysis
• Determining BCMS scope, boundaries and exclusions
• Leadership roles, policy commitments and accountability structures
• Business continuity objectives and performance measurement foundations
• Documented information, document control and evidence expectations

Workshop: Participants create a BCMS context, scope and governance statement for a case organisation, including interested parties and accountable roles.

Day 2: Business impact analysis and continuity risk assessment

• BIA methodology, interview planning and data validation
• Critical products, services, activities and process prioritisation
• Maximum acceptable outage and maximum tolerable period of disruption
• Recovery time objectives, recovery point objectives and minimum service levels
• People, premises, technology, information and supplier dependency mapping
• Disruption scenario identification and risk assessment criteria
• BIA reporting, prioritisation matrices and executive decision records

Workshop: Participants complete a BIA and dependency map for a critical service, producing justified MAO, RTO, RPO and resource requirements.

Day 3: Continuity strategies and response planning

• Strategy selection requirements under ISO 22301 clause 8
• Alternative site, remote working, manual workaround and reciprocal arrangement options
• Technology recovery, data restoration and cyber disruption dependencies
• Supplier continuity, contractual requirements and third-party assurance
• Resource allocation and cost-versus-recovery capability analysis
• Incident response structures, escalation criteria and crisis communications
• Business continuity plan architecture and plan ownership

Workshop: Participants evaluate recovery strategy options against defined RTOs and produce a documented strategy recommendation and plan structure.

Day 4: Implementation, exercising and operational control

• Implementing continuity procedures and response checklists
• Emergency communication trees, stakeholder messages and media coordination
• Competence, awareness and role-specific continuity training
• Exercise programme types: walkthrough, tabletop, simulation and live exercise
• Scenario design, inject development and exercise control arrangements
• Exercise observation, debriefing and after-action reporting
• Corrective actions, improvement tracking and plan maintenance cycles

Workshop: Participants design and facilitate a tabletop exercise scenario, producing an exercise brief, inject schedule and after-action report.

Day 5: Assurance, audit readiness and implementation planning

• Monitoring, measurement, analysis and evaluation of BCMS performance
• Internal audit programme design and ISO 22301 audit trails
• Nonconformity classification, root-cause analysis and corrective action
• Management review agenda, inputs, outputs and decision evidence
• Certification readiness and common implementation weaknesses
• BCMS implementation roadmap, milestones and resource planning
• Integration with ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 45001 and enterprise risk processes

Workshop: Participants produce a phased ISO 22301 implementation roadmap with priority actions, owners, evidence requirements and a 90-day initiation plan.

Tools & standards covered

ISO 22301:2019, ISO 22313:2020, ISO 22317:2021, Microsoft Excel

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions