Critical activities
A critical activity is an activity the company cannot stop for long. For each one the BIA records how long it can be down, how fast it must recover, how much data it can lose and how many people it needs — and the system computes its criticality tier.
Who may do it: a Risk Champion or unit head drafts the activities of their own team; the Entity Risk Manager completes and approves the entity’s BIA. See Roles and permissions.
What an activity carries
Section titled “What an activity carries”| Field | What it holds |
|---|---|
| Entity and team | Where the activity is performed, from the organisation structure |
| Owner | The person accountable for the activity |
| MTPD | Maximum tolerable period of disruption — how long the activity can be down before the impact becomes unacceptable |
| RTO | Recovery time objective — how fast the activity must be running again |
| RPO | Recovery point objective — how much data, measured in time, the activity can afford to lose |
| Minimum staff | The number of people needed to run the activity at its minimum level |
| Peak period | When in the year a disruption would hurt most, for example month-end |
| Criticality tier | Computed by the system from the MTPD bands |
Recording an activity
Section titled “Recording an activity”- Open your entity’s BIA for the current cycle.
- Add an activity and choose its team and owner.
- Enter MTPD, RTO and RPO, the minimum staff and the peak period.
- Save. The system computes the criticality tier and stamps you as the author.
- Add the activity’s dependencies and links.
How the criticality tier is set
Section titled “How the criticality tier is set”The MTPD bands are set once at the group root and apply to every entity beneath it (group configuration). The system places each activity’s MTPD in a band, and that band is the activity’s criticality tier — so a tier means the same thing in every company of the group.
What the system does or refuses
Section titled “What the system does or refuses”- The criticality tier is computed, never typed — see Computed, never typed.
- RTO cannot be longer than MTPD.
- MTPD bands change only at the group root. An entity cannot set its own bands.
- The BIA belongs to one entity. A parent reads it and cannot change it — see Subsidiary-Independence.