CBCI (Other exams) study plan
CBCI · Give each week a clear focus.
8 weeks · About 6 hours per week
Business Continuity Management (BCM) fundamentals and the BCMS lifecycle
Define the BCMS lifecycle stages and sequence them into a one-page diagram
Distinguish business continuity from disaster recovery, crisis management, and risk management
Map the governing standards landscape and identify the professional-practice areas each covers
Explain the roles of the BC manager, coordinator, and executive sponsor in a program
Your checkpoint
A one-page BCMS lifecycle diagram with each stage annotated in 2-3 sentences
Business Continuity Management (BCM) fundamentals and the BCMS lifecycle & Business impact analysis and risk assessment
Write a continuity policy statement that defines scope, authority, and objectives
Describe how program governance, budgeting, and reporting lines are established
Identify the inputs a business impact analysis requires from the BCMS lifecycle
Draft the sponsor briefing that justifies the BIA scope
Your checkpoint
A one-page draft continuity policy with scope statement and sponsor briefing outline
Business impact analysis and risk assessment
Design a BIA questionnaire that captures process inputs, outputs, dependencies, and peak periods
Calculate recovery time objectives from maximum tolerable downtime and recovery point objectives
Rank processes into tiers using impact categories across financial, regulatory, operational, and reputational dimensions
Select a risk assessment method and build a scoring scale for likelihood and impact
Your checkpoint
A completed BIA worksheet for one realistic organization with tiered processes and stated RTOs
Business impact analysis and risk assessment & Business continuity strategy and solution design
Produce a risk register that links each risk to affected processes and BIA findings
Evaluate risk treatment options and justify accept, mitigate, transfer, or avoid decisions
Translate BIA outputs into strategy requirements for people, facilities, technology, and suppliers
Compare recovery strategies on cost, recovery speed, and residual risk
Your checkpoint
A risk register with 10 entries, each linked to a tiered process and a treatment decision
Business continuity strategy and solution design
Design recovery strategies for alternate sites, remote work, and vital records
Specify technology recovery options spanning backup, replication, and cloud failover
Assess single points of failure across critical suppliers and third parties
Build a cost-benefit comparison that matches each strategy to an RTO tier
Your checkpoint
A strategy options matrix with cost, achievable RTO, and residual risk for each option
Plan development, response structures and incident management
Draft a business continuity plan with clear activation criteria and authority
Build an incident management structure with defined roles, escalation paths, and decision logs
Write crisis communication procedures covering internal, customer, media, and regulator audiences
Identify the plan sections that depend on BIA and strategy outputs
Your checkpoint
A full plan outline plus a completed incident response and escalation flowchart
Plan development, response structures and incident management & Testing, exercising, training, awareness and maintenance
Design a test and exercise program that escalates from plan walkthroughs to full simulations
Write exercise objectives, scope, and evaluation criteria for one tabletop scenario
Define training requirements by role and build an awareness campaign outline
Establish a maintenance schedule with review triggers for organizational change
Your checkpoint
A 12-month exercise calendar with one fully scripted tabletop scenario and evaluation form
Testing, exercising, training, awareness and maintenance & Business Continuity Management (BCM) fundamentals and the BCMS lifecycle & Business impact analysis and risk assessment & Business continuity strategy and solution design & Plan development, response structures and incident management
Conduct a full practice exam and score each domain separately
Diagnose weak domains and re-study the two lowest-scoring areas
Summarize lessons learned from exercises into corrective action tracking
Review all deliverables against lifecycle stages to confirm integrated understanding
Your checkpoint
A scored practice exam with a written remediation plan for the two weakest domains
Milestones
Week 2: Can explain the BCMS lifecycle and policy governance without notes, and articulate why the BIA drives every later stage
Week 4: Can compute an RTO from a stated maximum tolerable downtime and defend a process tiering decision in writing
Week 6: Can produce a risk register entry and a strategy justification that a reviewer accepts as internally consistent
Week 8: Scores at least 75 percent overall on a practice exam with no domain below 65 percent