What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on 8.3.5 Implementation of solutions?

Implementation records per selected solution; Maintenance regime keeping the solution in an activatable state; Readiness evidence such as a successful activation test or standby verification.

What is the most common gap auditors find on 8.3.5?

Solution implemented then left to decay as systems, sites and contracts change around it

ISO 22301:2019 · Operation, ISO 22301:2019

`8.3.5` Implementation of solutions

Implement and maintain the selected business continuity solutions so that they can be activated when they are needed.

Source: ISO 22301:2019, 8.3.5. 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

Implementation records per selected solution · Document repository
Readiness evidence such as a successful activation test or standby verification · Document repository

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Maintenance regime keeping the solution in an activatable state · 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

Solution implemented then left to decay as systems, sites and contracts change around it
Activation never verified, so readiness is an assumption
Maintenance responsibility unassigned after the implementation project closed

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

8.3.4 Resource requirements · 8.4 Business continuity plans and procedures