Business Continuity Framework (BCF)
Workshop agendas, worksheets and templates that take you from "what breaks first?" to a written continuity plan, policy and runbooks.
What problem it solves
Most companies can't say how long they could be down before customers leave. The usual answer is a formal business impact analysis, which can take months and stall before it produces anything you can use.
BCF shortens that work. Loosely based on NIST SP 800-34, it combines technical discovery (what systems you really have) with three short workshops with the business (what matters and how much data you can afford to lose). The output is a ranked list of systems, recovery targets, and ready-to-edit plan, policy and runbook templates.
Key features
- A process flowchart and a companion narrative that explain each step and which template it uses
- Three business impact analysis workshops, each with an agenda and a worksheet: business processes to business units, processes to technology, and technology components to recovery point objectives (RPO)
- A generic risk matrix and a System Risk Analysis spreadsheet, with and without macros
- A process delta checklist
- A business continuity and disaster recovery policy template and a business continuity plan template (version 1.1)
- Contact list workbook
- SOP and runbook templates: ERP outage, static IP dependency management, inventory planning, network path validation, and AWS cross-region restoration
- Python discovery scripts that merge and compare vulnerability scan, CMDB and XDR exports to build a complete system inventory
Quick start
There is nothing to install. The README says where to start:
- Download the ZIP and unzip it.
- Open "BCF - Process Overview Flowchart" (PDF) and "Business Continuity Framework - Process Overview" (Word) first.
- Work through Discovery, then the three Business Impact Analysis workshops in order (folders 1, 2 and 3), then the plan, policy and SOP templates.
Commands are copied from the project's own README or files. For everything else, see the repository (opens in a new tab).
Requirements, license and versions
Requirements
- Microsoft Word and Excel, or an office suite that opens .docx and .xlsx files
- Excel with macros enabled for the .xlsm risk spreadsheet (a no-macro version is included)
- A PDF reader for the process flowchart
- Optional: Python 3 with pandas to run the discovery scripts
License: Vizius license (non-commercial)
Free to use, copy and share for your own internal business planning. You may not sell it or use it to provide paid products or services. Keep the Vizius attribution, mark your changes, and send Vizius a copy of any modifications. This is not an OSI-approved open-source license.
Version and links
v1.0 documents (no tagged release).
What's changed
- Revised SOP and runbook templates (network path validation, AWS cross-region restoration, static IP dependencies, inventory planning).
- Added an SOP template for an ERP business continuity outage.
- Revised the process flowchart and the System Risk Analysis macro.
- First release of the version 1.0 framework documents and the license.
Status: Established
Field-tested templates: the version 1.0 framework documents, plus SOP and runbook templates added later. No tagged releases. Custom non-commercial license, so present it as a free framework rather than open-source software.
Related offering
Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery Planning
“What breaks first, and how long until we're running again?”
More open-source tools:
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