Disaster Recovery Planning Tips
Business Continuity Plannning in Case of a Disaster
Top business continuity planning tips include role playing, sharing information, helping each other out and updating your disaster recovery plan on a regular basis.
From Role Playing to Updating Your Business Continuity Plan, Are You Prepared for a Disaster?
Tip #1: Role play disaster recovery possibilities with your employees. Practice makes perfect! Create scenarios for your employees that forces them to think about what they would do if a disaster like a hurricane hit and eliminated the office; a fiber optic line was accidentally cut, severing all communications in your town; or if they're victimized by a burglar. Encourage employees to be creative in their reactions, offering prizes for the best disaster recovery ideas.
Tip #2: Share information about your disaster recovery plan with others in your business network. This isn't the time to be paranoid about your competitors. Network with other business leaders in your community at trade association or chamber of commerce meetings and find out what they have planned for disaster recovery strategies. Suggest that your association or chamber do a seminar on business continuity planning, with guest speakers from disaster recovery companies.
Tip #3: Share disaster recovery procedures with other business owners. In addition to sharing information with other business leaders, talk about the possibility of helping each other out with shared disaster recovery plans and strategies. Your exchange of effort during a catastrophe might be small (helping to communicate updates through voicemail) or large (allowing use of your equipment).
Tip #4: Update your disaster recovery training plan twice a year. Update your disaster recovery strategy plan twice annually with new information, changes and ideas. Some of the best business continuity plans go up in smoke during a disaster simply because they're so outdated. Use the time set aside for updates to ensure all employees are familiar with disaster recovery procedures. Encourage employees to offer up more scenarios and more ideas for updates to the original disaster recovery plan.
Finally, consider contracting with a disaster recovery company to outline your strategy and plan. They're pros, and they can help you with everything from brainstorming business continuity plans to outlining disaster recovery strategies and procedures. And many disaster recovery companies operate on a sliding scale, working with large and small businesses.
Find out what others are saying about disaster recovery planning on the insurance blog.
Talk back with the author of this article: email Lisa Nichols and tell her about your experiences implementing disaster recovery strategies.
