MSG Team's other articles

11261 How the Sharing Economy is Different

Companies like Uber and Airbnb have a lot in common. They are both startups that were started with relatively fewer resources. Both these companies started around the same time. Uber started in 2008 whereas Airbnb started in 2009. Today, both these corporations are worth billions of dollars. However, the similarities do not end there. The […]

10789 Components of a Project Plan

Introduction This article details the high level project plan and the components of the same. A project is a success if it meets the objectives of time, cost, technical and business. Project objectives are defined in the preliminary project scope statement. As mentioned above, a project is deemed complete if the project objectives have been […]

11104 Role of a Finance Certifier in Six Sigma Project

The Finance Certifier is the only member of the Six Sigma Project team apart from the Project Lead that is selected by the Project Champion. This is because, it is the Project Champions responsibility to ensure that the financials of the Project are absolutely unbiased. Of late, finance certifiers have come under a lot of […]

10181 Linearity and Resolution

Apart from accuracy and precision, there are more factors that determine the soundness of a measurement system. Two of these important factors are as follows: Resolution: Resolution is the ability to see fine details in a system. This ability also gives the system, the ability to distinguish different readings from one another. A good example […]

11861 What is FOMO (Fear of Missing out) and how it Impacts all of us in the Digital Age

What is FOMO or the Fear of Missing out and how does it Impact us all The acronym FOMO or Fear of Missing Out refers to the perceived sense of loss and fear of missing out on important updates, whether they are Facebook posts, Tweets, News Items, or even shopping goods and services. To explain, […]

Search with tags

  • No tags available.

Drawing up a good Disaster Recovery plan and a Business Continuity plan involves the senior management of the Organization as well as the working staff and managers at various levels. While the management is responsible for giving the importance, focus and credibility to the DR & BC plans as well as providing the resources through budgets, the staff and all functional managers have a major role to play in lending their depth of knowledge, understanding and experience in estimating the risks as well as in drawing up the recovery implementation plan.

A good DR or BC plan should define and enumerate the following:

  1. Objective of the Plan, the validity of the plan and the review due date.

  2. State the sponsoring authority and list out the team responsible for the Planning and Implementation.

  3. State and establish who will be the authority to decide and declare a crises mode and thus initiate Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity. The plan should also cover how and when such declaration will be affected.

    This section should clearly explain the various scenarios which qualify as a crises or a disaster to initiate DR & BC action plan. Every single event or occurrence in terms of a small fire or a system shutdown due to network failure or power situation need not qualify for a crisis if the impact is limited to a small department or section and can be set right within a short time. Therefore qualifying an event and deciding on whether to go into a crises and disaster recovery mode or not would have to be a decision to be taken by senior management who is able to understand the situation, estimate the impact and judge accordingly in consultation with the functional managers.

  4. The plan should establish very clear command structure and authority as well as responsibility levels in detail.

  5. The plan should define the process of recovery in detail and separately for each functional team. Besides it should clearly establish the priority of which process, business function or system should be recovered on priority in case of an occurrence or an event.

  6. A section of the plan should be dedicated to covering the contact details that would be required in case of emergency or crises. Such a list should include the contacts of all members in management/board along with the contact details of senior managers, business heads as well as key personnel.

    The list should also include emergency phone numbers of Fire station, Hospitals, Airport, Police, Ambulance and other such services.

    Against each department, the list of all vendors, their contacts and other communication details should be covered in detail.

  7. If the plan provides for any resource to be kept in reserve as a DR or BC backup, the same should be explained in the plan and details of its location etc should be provided.

  8. Like any manual, it is advisable to have a controlled release of the DR & BC Plans with provision to record the reviews and revisions.

  9. A detailed DR & BC plan should list out the schedule for trials and mock drills as a part of the implementation and readiness testing plan. Such mock drills should be a routine and repetitive exercise undertaken periodically with frequency determined based on the criticality of the process or business function.

A good DR or BC plan is one which can be read and auctioned by anyone following the detailed instructions given in the plan. A good plan shows and works towards a high level of readiness in dealing with a crises and provides for effective solutions.

Article Written by

MSG Team

An insightful writer passionate about sharing expertise, trends, and tips, dedicated to inspiring and informing readers through engaging and thoughtful content.

Leave a reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Articles

How the Government Should Manage Natural Disasters

MSG Team

What is Disaster Recovery Plan ?

MSG Team

Risk of Data Loss and IT Systems Failures in Organisations

MSG Team