PECB ISO 22301 Foundation study plan

Define business continuity, a business continuity management system (BCMS), and the difference between incident response, crisis management, and disaster recovery in your own words

Explain the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle and map each stage to concrete BCMS activities

List the core vocabulary of ISO 22301 (disruption, continuity objective, maximum acceptable outage, recovery time objective, recovery point objective, minimum business continuity objective) and write one-sentence definitions for each

Identify the main stakeholder groups a BCMS serves and what each needs from it

Describe the structure of a management system standard (scope, normative references, terms, requirements clauses) and locate where BCMS requirements sit

Explain the role of business impact analysis and risk assessment in shaping continuity strategy, without yet working through the clauses in detail

Distinguish preventive, mitigating and recovery controls and give two examples of each in a BCMS context

Compare certification, conformity assessment and self-declaration and state what each does and does not prove

Walk through the leadership and planning clauses and list the specific top-management commitments they require

Draft a scope statement for a fictional organisation that correctly addresses products, services, locations and interfaces with third parties

Identify the inputs a BCMS policy must contain and how it is communicated and reviewed

Map the roles, responsibilities and authorities a BCMS needs and assign them to named functions in your fictional organisation

Explain how to identify legal, regulatory and contractual continuity obligations and how to record them

Outline the steps of a business impact analysis, including activity prioritisation and determination of MTPD, RTO and MBCO

Outline a risk assessment process for disruption scenarios and show how risk treatment options are selected

Describe what documented information the standard expects from planning and support processes and why control of that information matters

Select continuity strategies for each prioritised activity and justify them against the BIA and risk assessment outputs

Explain the concept of a solution and how it differs from a single recovery resource

Draft the structure of a business continuity plan, including activation criteria, roles, communications and escalation

Describe how incident response structures relate to the BCMS and where crisis communication fits

Design an exercise programme with a progression from discussion-based to simulation exercises and a stated frequency

Define performance monitoring, measurement and evaluation activities for a BCMS, including what metrics actually indicate readiness

Describe the internal audit requirements of the BCMS and how findings feed management review

Prepare the typical inputs and outputs of a management review and explain what decisions it must produce

Identify nonconformities and corrective actions and describe how root cause analysis supports continual improvement

Trace how a single disruption scenario flows from BIA through strategy, plan, exercise and corrective action across the whole standard

Revisit the week 1 concepts and correct any definitions that turned out to be imprecise once the clauses were studied

Complete a timed mock exam and categorise every missed question by domain and by clause

Re-drill weak areas identified in the error log until each is explained aloud without notes

Summarise each requirements clause in one sentence and check the summary against the standard text

Practise explaining the difference between certification readiness and actual continuity capability

Run a final timed mock exam and confirm a stable score above your target