Eight steps to being ready for disaster
Debra Young
Published: 27 Apr 2004 11:45 BST
Step 5: Routinely test your plan to keep it current
Generally, people talk about the three Ps of disaster planning: people, property, and priorities. But EDS recommends three more: practice, practice, practice. The drills you do today may be critical to your company's survival. It's all part of making sure that your plan stays current. Those drills can be as simple as asking a few well-pointed questions:
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Is your crisis management procedures manual readily accessible from several locations?
Have you looked at it lately to make sure that the contact-in-case-of-emergency phone list is current?
Do you know when to call in local authorities and who has the authority to make that decision?
How well do you control vendor and visitor access to your facilities?
Do your security procedures reflect what you really expect your employees to do in an emergency?
Repsher tells of one chief executive who was so committed to business continuity planning that he instituted a corporate-wide policy that any meeting involving three or more employees had to open with a five-minute discussion on a business-continuity topic. At first it was viewed as a joke, but gradually it gained widespread acceptance because employees realised that the broad range of topics covered during the course of a year were really preparing them well to react to any disruption to normal operations.
Repsher recommends making sure a triage process is established for the command centre to confirm the impact of disaster on the business. Otherwise, in the heat of a disaster, those heading up the team might decide to change priorities based on the last phone call received, rather than on an integrated approach to business recovery.
Step 6: Tailor your business continuity investments to likely threats and key priorities
It's all about balancing protection against costs and survival. Recent events have made us think of terrorism as our foremost threat, but there are many other threats that are far more commonplace: employee or non-employee workplace violence, labour actions and disputes, cyberattacks (including computer viruses and denial of service), hoaxes, and industrial espionage. Your plan needs to focus on those issues most likely to cause disruption.
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