What is the fifth professional practice for Business Continuity Management?

The fifth professional practice for Business Continuity Management is Incident Response. This practice focuses on the immediate actions that must be taken following a disruptive incident to minimize its impact and ensure a swift recovery. It involves establishing protocols for responding to various types of incidents, defining roles and responsibilities, and training relevant personnel to respond effectively.

Through Incident Response, organizations are prepared to manage the chaos that often accompanies disruptions, allowing them to stabilize operations and begin the recovery process. This practice is essential because it ensures that there is a coordinated approach to managing incidents, helps in reducing the duration of disruptions, and is integral to the overall business continuity framework.

The other options, while important aspects of Business Continuity Management, represent different stages or components of the process. Awareness and training programs prepare staff for their roles, Business Continuity Strategies focus on how to ensure continuity of critical functions, and crisis management plans handle broader strategic responses to crises. However, Incident Response is specifically centered on the tactical response to an actual event, making it the appropriate choice for the fifth professional practice.