Writing a business continuity plan for a small business
For owners, office and operations managers of businesses with roughly 5 to 50 staff who need one written plan for the whole business, not just a team. If you lead a team inside a larger company, start with 'Keeping critical work going: continuity planning for team leaders'. You'll assess the hazards that could stop the business, run a business impact analysis to set recovery time and recovery point objectives, choose recovery strategies for premises, IT and data, write the crisis communications section, and decide how the plan is stored, exercised and kept current. Built on Ready.gov's business planning pages and plan template (US), the NCSC small organisations guide (UK) and the GOV.UK-published guide 'Expecting the unexpected'. No prior continuity training is needed. It doesn't cover insurance advice or life-safety emergency procedures in detail.
- Level
- Intermediate
- Length
- About 96 minutes
- Contents
- 5 lessons · final exam
- Status
- Published · updated 10 Oct 2026
Skills you'll practise
- Identify the hazards and disruption scenarios that could stop a small business, and rate them by likelihood and effect
- Set recovery time and recovery point objectives for critical functions from a business impact analysis
- Choose recovery strategies for premises, IT and data, including backups that can be restored
- Write the crisis communications section of a continuity plan: audiences, contacts, spokesperson and prepared messages
- Plan how the continuity plan is stored, distributed, exercised and kept up to date
Course outline
- 1.Identifying the hazards and disruption scenarios that could stop the businessLesson · 15 min
- 2.Setting recovery time and recovery point objectives from a business impact analysisLesson · 17 min
- 3.Choosing recovery strategies for premises, IT and dataLesson · 18 min
- 4.Writing the crisis communications section of the planLesson · 14 min
- 5.Storing, distributing, exercising and updating the planLesson · 12 min
- 6.Writing a business continuity plan for a small business: knowledge checkKnowledge check · 13 questions
- 7.Writing a business continuity plan for a small business: practical exerciseKnowledge check · 1 question
- 8.Final exam10 questions · passing it completes the course, so people who already know the material can test out
Sources it draws on
The lessons and questions are written from these references, so learners can go back to the original.
- Ready.gov: Business Continuity Planning
- Ready.gov: Business Continuity Plan template (PDF)
- Ready.gov: Risk Assessment (business)
- Ready.gov: Business Impact Analysis
- Ready.gov: IT Disaster Recovery Plan and data backup
- Ready.gov: Crisis Communications Plan
- Ready.gov: Testing and Exercises (business)
- NCSC: Small organisations guide to cyber security, Backing up your data
- NCSC: Exercise in a Box
- GOV.UK: Expecting the unexpected: business continuity in an uncertain world (NaCTSO, London First and the Business Continuity Institute)
See it with your own jobs and topics
Tell us about your team and we'll walk you through setup, from choosing jobs to your first skills check.