Continual improvement

What the baseline asks

Keep making the BCMS more suitable, adequate and effective, using both qualitative and quantitative measures, and use what analysis and evaluation show, together with what management review produces, to decide whether business or BCMS needs or opportunities have to be dealt with as part of improvement.

What it means when the service runs in the cloud

Continual improvement for cloud continuity comes from tests, incidents and the provider's own changes. Set a rhythm that revisits the fallbacks before the contracts renew, not after.

Evidence an auditor or a customer asks for

• Improvement register or backlog with items traceable to analysis, evaluation or management review
• Both qualitative and quantitative measures in use
• Evidence of improvements delivered over successive cycles
• Link from business change into the improvement determination

Common gaps in a cloud estate

• Improvement evidenced only by corrective actions, so nothing improves that was not first broken
• Quantitative measures only, missing qualitative signals from exercises and near misses
• Improvement register that accumulates items and closes none
• Business needs never considered, so the BCMS improves against itself rather than against the organization

Done well, what the file shows

Done well, this clause leaves a improvement register or backlog with items traceable to analysis, evaluation or management review that names the service, the region and the date it was last tested, so a reviewer can follow it to the provider document without asking anyone. Where that record does not exist, the gap is visible in the next review whether or not the service is working.

A test you can run this month

Name the improvement actions taken since the last contract renewal.