Business continuity and disaster recovery readiness
Business continuity and disaster recovery assessment for clear recovery priorities
Review how your continuity plans, recovery objectives and supporting evidence fit the services your business depends on. ICA's scoped assessment identifies planning gaps and connects dependency observations to a recovery improvement roadmap.
MIS
CISSP
CHISL
CPHIMS
CDH-E
Will Long Sr. · Founder
MIS · CHISL · CDH-E · CISSP · CPHIMS
Nearly 40 years in IT & cybersecurity
Former VP & CISO, Children’s Health System of Texas
Tim Pelikan · Co-Founder
Credential details pending confirmation
30 years in cybersecurity & data risk
Interviews & industry conversations
Coffee With Closers
Cybersecurity With Discern
“ICA provides distinctive security professionals who excel at building strong client relationships, demonstrate exceptional organization, and deliver practical, risk-based consulting recommendations to our clients.”
Michael Cox, CIPP/US
Chief Privacy Consultant & Founder, SoCal Privacy Consultants
Partner endorsement of ICA’s advisory work
Decide which recovery assumptions need attention
Leadership may struggle to explain what would happen if a critical service became unavailable, or whether recovery assumptions have been examined together.
This assessment is intended for COOs, CIOs, business continuity leaders and risk managers concerned about outages or unvalidated recovery plans. It supports decisions about which planning gaps deserve attention first. The review connects business expectations with the documented recovery approach so owners can discuss priorities using the same evidence.
Follow the dependencies behind critical services
Scope starts with agreed business processes and the services they depend on. The review considers continuity plans, recovery objectives, backup governance and exercise history. Relevant dependencies may include applications, supporting infrastructure, key people and external providers where they affect the selected services.
A recovery objective should make the business expectation clear: how long a service can be unavailable and how much data loss the business can tolerate. Reviewing those expectations alongside plans helps reveal missing assumptions. For example, an application recovery plan may depend on another service whose recovery sequence is unclear. Coverage is agreed rather than assumed to include every process or system.
Compare plans with interviews and existing evidence
The approach combines business and IT interviews with review of recovery plans and testing evidence. Business owners explain operational priorities and continuity arrangements. IT owners explain documented recovery dependencies and backup responsibilities.
Evidence may include process inventories, continuity procedures, recovery plans, backup policies and records from previous exercises or restoration tests. The review examines what those records actually cover and where conclusions remain uncertain. An exercise that discussed decisions offers different evidence from a restoration test. Plan and evidence review does not prove that backups are recoverable; hands-on restoration testing requires separate scope.
Use the findings to plan recovery improvements
Typical outputs are agreed for the engagement.
Continuity gap report. Documents gaps found within the reviewed plans and evidence. Leadership can use it to understand where preparedness depends on unresolved assumptions or incomplete documentation.
Dependency observations. Explain relationships affecting the selected critical services. Business and IT owners can use these observations to discuss recovery sequencing and responsibilities that cross team or provider boundaries.
Recovery improvement roadmap. Recommends priorities for addressing the findings. It gives owners a basis for planning updates and deciding where further validation is needed.
The roadmap supports implementation planning. Executing the recommendations remains a separate responsibility.
Bring business and IT owners into the scope
Define the business decision first, then agree the processes, recovery plans and evidence to review. Cost and timing depend on that coverage, the number of participating teams and the availability of relevant records. Incomplete documentation may require more interview time and limits what can be concluded.
Identify people who understand day-to-day operations as well as those responsible for recovery. Gather current plans and available exercise records. Agree evidence access and handling arrangements before sharing sensitive material. Client participation helps distinguish an outdated document from a current practice that has not been recorded.
Keep readiness review separate from recovery execution
This engagement reviews preparedness within the agreed scope. Hands-on restoration testing needs a separate scope with agreed systems, access and operational safeguards. Existing test records can inform the review, but conclusions remain bounded by what those tests covered.
The assessment does not guarantee recovery or include emergency response, managed backup operations or remediation execution. An incident response and ransomware readiness assessment focuses on response roles, escalation and communications. This continuity review concentrates on sustaining critical services and planning recovery. Broader enterprise cyber-risk decisions may warrant a separate risk assessment.
Questions about continuity and recovery readiness
Who should lead this assessment internally?
A business continuity leader, COO or CIO can coordinate it. Business process owners and IT recovery owners should participate because the assessment examines the relationship between operational expectations and documented recovery arrangements.
Can we focus on a few critical services?
Yes. Scope can center on selected processes and their dependencies. Agree the coverage explicitly so leadership understands which services were reviewed and where additional assessment may be needed.
What if our plans have never been exercised?
Interviews and plan review can still identify gaps and unsupported assumptions. The findings should explain the missing testing evidence. Reviewing a plan cannot establish that the documented recovery approach will work in practice.
What determines the assessment's cost and timing?
Key factors include process coverage, recovery-plan complexity, stakeholder participation and evidence availability. These details establish the work required; a fee or delivery schedule should be agreed against the actual scope.
How does this differ from ransomware readiness?
Ransomware readiness examines response coordination and related preparedness. This assessment reviews critical-service dependencies, continuity arrangements and recovery objectives. The scopes can be coordinated where response decisions affect recovery priorities.
Does the assessment restore backups or implement the roadmap?
The intended outputs are a continuity gap report, dependency observations and a recovery improvement roadmap. Restoration testing and implementation require separately agreed work. The review provides planning evidence rather than a recovery guarantee.
Give recovery planning a clearer basis
Start with the critical services whose recovery assumptions concern you most. A scoped continuity and disaster recovery readiness assessment can organize the planning gaps and dependency questions your teams need to address. Use the roadmap to decide which improvements and further validation deserve attention first.
Decide which recovery assumptions need attention
Leadership may struggle to explain what would happen if a critical service became unavailable, or whether recovery assumptions have been examined together.
This assessment is intended for COOs, CIOs, business continuity leaders and risk managers concerned about outages or unvalidated recovery plans. It supports decisions about which planning gaps deserve attention first. The review connects business expectations with the documented recovery approach so owners can discuss priorities using the same evidence.
Follow the dependencies behind critical services
Scope starts with agreed business processes and the services they depend on. The review considers continuity plans, recovery objectives, backup governance and exercise history. Relevant dependencies may include applications, supporting infrastructure, key people and external providers where they affect the selected services.
A recovery objective should make the business expectation clear: how long a service can be unavailable and how much data loss the business can tolerate. Reviewing those expectations alongside plans helps reveal missing assumptions. For example, an application recovery plan may depend on another service whose recovery sequence is unclear. Coverage is agreed rather than assumed to include every process or system.
Compare plans with interviews and existing evidence
The approach combines business and IT interviews with review of recovery plans and testing evidence. Business owners explain operational priorities and continuity arrangements. IT owners explain documented recovery dependencies and backup responsibilities.
Evidence may include process inventories, continuity procedures, recovery plans, backup policies and records from previous exercises or restoration tests. The review examines what those records actually cover and where conclusions remain uncertain. An exercise that discussed decisions offers different evidence from a restoration test. Plan and evidence review does not prove that backups are recoverable; hands-on restoration testing requires separate scope.
Use the findings to plan recovery improvements
Typical outputs are agreed for the engagement.
Continuity gap report. Documents gaps found within the reviewed plans and evidence. Leadership can use it to understand where preparedness depends on unresolved assumptions or incomplete documentation.
Dependency observations. Explain relationships affecting the selected critical services. Business and IT owners can use these observations to discuss recovery sequencing and responsibilities that cross team or provider boundaries.
Recovery improvement roadmap. Recommends priorities for addressing the findings. It gives owners a basis for planning updates and deciding where further validation is needed.
The roadmap supports implementation planning. Executing the recommendations remains a separate responsibility.
Bring business and IT owners into the scope
Define the business decision first, then agree the processes, recovery plans and evidence to review. Cost and timing depend on that coverage, the number of participating teams and the availability of relevant records. Incomplete documentation may require more interview time and limits what can be concluded.
Identify people who understand day-to-day operations as well as those responsible for recovery. Gather current plans and available exercise records. Agree evidence access and handling arrangements before sharing sensitive material. Client participation helps distinguish an outdated document from a current practice that has not been recorded.
Keep readiness review separate from recovery execution
This engagement reviews preparedness within the agreed scope. Hands-on restoration testing needs a separate scope with agreed systems, access and operational safeguards. Existing test records can inform the review, but conclusions remain bounded by what those tests covered.
The assessment does not guarantee recovery or include emergency response, managed backup operations or remediation execution. An incident response and ransomware readiness assessment focuses on response roles, escalation and communications. This continuity review concentrates on sustaining critical services and planning recovery. Broader enterprise cyber-risk decisions may warrant a separate risk assessment.
Questions about continuity and recovery readiness
Who should lead this assessment internally?
A business continuity leader, COO or CIO can coordinate it. Business process owners and IT recovery owners should participate because the assessment examines the relationship between operational expectations and documented recovery arrangements.
Can we focus on a few critical services?
Yes. Scope can center on selected processes and their dependencies. Agree the coverage explicitly so leadership understands which services were reviewed and where additional assessment may be needed.
What if our plans have never been exercised?
Interviews and plan review can still identify gaps and unsupported assumptions. The findings should explain the missing testing evidence. Reviewing a plan cannot establish that the documented recovery approach will work in practice.
What determines the assessment's cost and timing?
Key factors include process coverage, recovery-plan complexity, stakeholder participation and evidence availability. These details establish the work required; a fee or delivery schedule should be agreed against the actual scope.
How does this differ from ransomware readiness?
Ransomware readiness examines response coordination and related preparedness. This assessment reviews critical-service dependencies, continuity arrangements and recovery objectives. The scopes can be coordinated where response decisions affect recovery priorities.
Does the assessment restore backups or implement the roadmap?
The intended outputs are a continuity gap report, dependency observations and a recovery improvement roadmap. Restoration testing and implementation require separately agreed work. The review provides planning evidence rather than a recovery guarantee.
Give recovery planning a clearer basis
Start with the critical services whose recovery assumptions concern you most. A scoped continuity and disaster recovery readiness assessment can organize the planning gaps and dependency questions your teams need to address. Use the roadmap to decide which improvements and further validation deserve attention first.