← Back to Running a business

The Library / Running a business

Practical guide / Free to read

Give the business a way forward.

Prepare for an absence or interruption with arrangements people can find, understand, and try.

Begin with a situation you can picture

Imagine you cannot work tomorrow. Think about the first person who would need an answer, the next promise due, and the information someone would need to find. You can start with a single activity. A business with one owner can still make useful arrangements for communication, rescheduling, and a responsible pause.

Write down the business or part of the business your plan covers. Include the locations, people, working hours, and seasonal commitments that could change your priorities. An initial plan can contain open questions; give them a next action as you learn more.

Decide what needs to continue

List the products, services, and responsibilities you would need to continue, pause, or restore. For each one, identify the people, information, and practical arrangements it depends on. Ready.gov provides US preparedness resources for developing a broader business continuity plan.

For each activity, describe a minimum workable service. An owner may be unable to complete a specialist job while a trusted person can still explain a delay to the customer. Record how long the activity can wait and your desired recovery time. Those times are your planning assumptions, not guarantees.

Background: Ready.gov: Ready Business

Agree the help and its limits

A name in a plan is a starting point. Speak with the person about availability, what they know, and what they are willing and authorized to do. Record the limits. A colleague who can arrange appointments may still need someone else to approve refunds or changed contract terms.

Keep proposed, confirmed, and tested arrangements distinct. A confirmation should explain what was agreed, who checked it, and when. A practical test should say what was tried and what it established. Changing the responsibility means checking whether the earlier arrangement still applies.

If nobody can cover the work yet, leave that visible. Consider whether the next step is an introduction, training, narrower cover, or a pause arrangement.

Check what the alternatives depend on

Map the resources each activity needs: people, equipment, software, information, premises, suppliers, utilities, and specialist services. Then describe an alternative and what must be arranged to use it.

Try a concrete question: if the usual computer is unavailable, can the alternative instructions and customer list still be reached? If the alternate supplier uses the same unavailable delivery route, is it a useful alternative for this scenario? The planner can highlight shared resources you have explicitly linked; it cannot discover unrecorded dependencies.

Compare the time needed to arrange an alternative with the time the activity needs to resume. Leave unknown estimates blank. Zero hours describes an immediate arrangement and should only be used deliberately.

Make the right information findable

Record where current instructions and business records live, which version matters, who maintains them, and how authorized access is arranged. Keep passwords and recovery secrets in the appropriate secure storage, with a reference to the agreed access process where useful.

NIST’s small-business recovery guidance includes checking the integrity of backed-up information before using it for restoration and identifying who is responsible for recovery. A recorded backup location alone does not establish that the information can be restored and used.

Record an actual access or restoration test, who performed it, and the result. Keep the plan itself somewhere accessible if the usual device or account is unavailable. A printed quick-action copy can help, provided the people involved know where to find it.

Background: NIST: Cybersecurity Framework 2.0 Small Business Quick-Start Guide

Prepare useful updates and continuing commitments

Choose who needs an update, who gives it, which facts must be checked, and when another update is due. Prepare a draft in your own voice. Explain the practical effect on the recipient and the next step you can reasonably commit to.

Identify obligations that continue during disruption: customer work, staff pay, rent, supplier commitments, and other relevant dates. Reference the supporting records. Use Cash Timing and Business Spending for detailed financial planning; the continuity plan keeps the interruption-related responsibility and next action clear.

Keep insurance contacts and relevant policy references nearby. Note the questions that need confirmation with the provider. The presence of a policy in this plan does not establish coverage for a particular event.

Try the plan with someone

Choose a realistic scenario and walk through the response. Ask the person helping to find the instructions, identify the first action, and explain when they would need help. Record what they could actually do and which information was missing.

Try the arrangements before relying on them, and revisit them when people, premises, equipment, or responsibilities change. In this tool, a practice session keeps the plan revision it used. Later plan edits do not rewrite what happened during the exercise.

If a check fails or a step is skipped, explain why and create a preparation follow-up. Record the outcome of the follow-up after trying the relevant check again. A completed checklist alone does not confirm the whole business is prepared.

Background: Ready.gov: Ready Business

Use the plan and review the recovery

During an actual disruption, follow relevant existing emergency procedures first where people may be at risk. Use the plan to coordinate business actions, record changed assumptions, and keep affected people informed. The tool is a working record; it does not monitor incidents or contact anyone.

Define observable checks for restoring service. Include the work needed to reconcile temporary notes, confirm the backlog, and prevent missed or duplicated tasks. NIST’s recovery guidance also calls for documenting the incident, response, recovery, and lessons learned.

You can close a session with improvements needed while retaining unfinished work. Keep the resulting preparation actions visible and give them an owner and a review date.

Background: NIST: Cybersecurity Framework 2.0 Small Business Quick-Start Guide

Keep the right copy for the next person

Download the editable JSON plan to reopen the complete working record. Choose a PDF reading copy for the full plan, one scenario, outstanding arrangements, or a selected person. Review the output before sharing it.

The selected-person briefing starts with no fields selected. Choose the individual pieces they need; the preview shows exactly what the briefing contains. The plan name, business, revision, and review date identify the copy. Private notes and other entries are not automatically appended.

Business Handover and Business Records imports create reviewed copies with source references. Changed imported entries are identified for review instead of silently replacing your work. A checklist export creates fresh steps; Owner Overview can review the saved continuity plan as a dated source. These files do not synchronize.

Come back when a person, supplier, system, location, or activity changes, or when a practice reveals something new. The value is in keeping the arrangements usable.

Try it in your own situation

Make one arrangement usable

  1. Choose one activity that would need attention during an absence.
  2. Describe the minimum service and how long it can wait.
  3. Identify the person, instructions, and resources required.
  4. Check the proposed alternative and its dependencies.
  5. Practice finding the information and taking the first step.
  6. Keep a dated copy and assign the gaps you found.

Keep exploring.

Prepare a useful handover. Explore Running a business
Sources and further reading

Original Brass Charter examples and exercises, with background reading from the sources below.

Keep your open draft?

Continuing will discard your unsaved changes. You can return to the draft and save or download it first.