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In this episode of the Managing Uncertainty Podcast, Bryghtpath Principal & Chief Executive Bryan Strawser discusses the key metrics to measure the success of your business continuity program. Topics discussed include business continuity program metrics, maturity models and measurements for continuity programs, strategic metrics that your c-suite wants to see, and operational metrics that show the day-to-day progress of your program. Related Episodes & Blog Posts Blog Post: ISO 27031: Looking at ISO’s Disaster Recovery Standard Blog Post: Business Continuity as a Service: How to Outsource Your Continuity Program Episode #113: Roles and Responsibilities in a BC Program Episode #116: Tools We Use At Bryghtpath (2021 Edition) Episode Transcript Hello, and welcome to the Managing Uncertainty Podcast. This is Bryan Strawser, principal and chief executive here at Bryghtpath. In this week’s episode, I would like to talk about key metrics to measure the success of your business continuity program. I’ve been doing this for about 25 years and the question… One of the questions that just makes me cringe is this question: Are there metrics we should be tracking? In short, the answer is yes. Hell yes, there are. What metrics should you be tracking? Well, it depends. Do you really want to know where your program is working? That your organization’s resilience and actually prepared to respond to the next disruption? Or you just want to make sure the boxes are checked. It’s really not a trick question. I think everyone wants to know if their program and plans would actually work. But if you can’t grasp the difference between these two questions, you’re not alone. We frequently encounter confusion about the fact that merely tracking business continuity program compliance (i.e. checking the boxes) is not the end game for business continuity program success. It takes more than just know the requirements, do the thing, check the boxes to gauge whether your program is effective, and helping move your organization forward towards its resiliency goals. Employing the right combination of metrics, operational compliance, plan quality, and program maturity are all equally important to understand your organization’s true resilience. Implementing a system that measures all three will give your company the insights it needs to move your program to full maturity, long-term sustainability and success in responding to the next disruption. Let’s talk about how to understand program metrics. The first is operational compliance metrics. And as I just said, these really only tell you part of the story, but there’s still a foundational starting point for measuring the success of your program. At the very least, you should be looking at progress at the business unit or plan level for BIA completion, business continuity plan completion, whether new plan creation or revisions to plan on whatever your cycle is, completion of exercises and then whether after-action items that have been identified in exercises or actual incidents have been addressed and the improvements implemented. You can get more detailed here. You could track like policy compliance and attestation of the plan at the next leadership level. You could track… I think I already mentioned training, but you can track all the different elements of things that your program r