What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on 8.3.1 General?

Traceability from BIA and risk assessment outputs into the strategy options considered; Options covering the before, during and after phases; Record of which solutions make up each selected strategy.

What is the most common gap auditors find on 8.3.1?

Only during disruption options considered, with nothing done to reduce likelihood beforehand

ISO 22301:2019 · Operation, ISO 22301:2019

`8.3.1` General

Using what the impact analysis and the risk assessment produced, identify and choose business continuity strategies that look at options for the periods ahead of, during and following a disruption, each strategy being made up of one or more solutions.

Source: ISO 22301:2019, 8.3.1. The statement above is our statement of the clause, read from the published text and cited so you can check it against the official text, not the instrument verbatim. Open ISO 22301:2019 in the compliance library.

artefacts

held by a system

at each review

hard

to go live

Document repository

where the evidence lives

teal = a system already holds it · olive = produced at each review. To go live: easy when half or more of the artefacts are already held by a system, moderate from a quarter to a half, hard below a quarter.

These are the artefacts auditors commonly ask for on this requirement, our guidance rather than text from the standard. Your assessor decides what is sufficient in your context, and asks for samples across the period when a report covers one.

system holds itEvidence a system already holds

none for this control

periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review

Record of which solutions make up each selected strategy · Document repository

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Traceability from BIA and risk assessment outputs into the strategy options considered · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Options covering the before, during and after phases · Document repository

First move

No system holds this evidence for you: it is people and documents. Reminders and routing to the owner still save time. Put the document under version control with an owner and review date, and log each review as a record with reviewer and date.

Common gaps auditors find

Only during disruption options considered, with nothing done to reduce likelihood beforehand
Strategy stated at a level too high to name any actual solution
Options never documented, so only the chosen one is visible

Do this for your whole sheet

Paste the rows you run your controls from and get this mapping for every control at once, with the periodic-review ones flagged and a first move per row. No account for the first run.

Build my evidence sheet

8.3 Business continuity strategies and solutions · 8.3.2 Identification of strategies and solutions