The Business Continuity Plan for most companies has taken a long time to develop and consumed numerous resources, in dollars and staff time. It is maintained regularly with updated contact lists and team members are required to sign-off that they have read the plan and understand it. The plan document sits in a big red binder on every manager’s office and people even have copies at home.
But, could it actually be used during an emergency to bring the company back to an operational status?
Here are some things that you need to ask about your plan before answering yes to the question just asked.
How is the document organized? Does it have tables and lists of team members, vendors, clients, inventory, call trees and other great information spread throughout the plan?
Are the actual recovery tasks detailed so that someone with a little bit less experience can follow them and restore or recover the technology and business activities?
Where are the recovery tasks actually located in the document? Are they at the back after pages and pages of company information, the recovery philosophy, schedules and maps? Or are the tasks up front where they should be so that they are readily available and the team members do not have to flip through pages and pages of information that they do not need.
A well organized plan document can save a lot of time during an actual disaster and can also make the maintenance of the plan easier if it is well designed and the layout is actually usable by those people who will need it after an emergency event.
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