Disaster Recovery — Part II

In response to an inquiry about communciations being the essential ingredient for disaster recovery planning, I responded as follows:

My article in Law Technology News in October 2001 about disaster planning and my work with a number of larger firms brought me to create a Disaster Recovery Roundtable. The net result of that effort was the development of a template that was modified and is being used by a number of firms today.

Lessons learned from that experience include: i.) This is not just about recovery from a disaster, this is about succession; ii.) Communications is an essential ingredient to any such plan (as it is in every plan); iii.) Creating a plan on paper is insufficient to achieve your goal of recovery and succession; iv.)Practice makes perfect (as in everything!) and failure to practice usually means that the edicts of the plan are forgotten or become outdated quickly and, when needed, are not/cannot be implemented.

Thus, just creating the plan is insufficient. Every 6 months or so, the firm must pretend there is a disaster and seek to implement the elements of the plan. Then change those facets of the plan that didn’t work as well as desired.

Re communications, with the rapid change of cell phone numbers and movement of people (with change of addresses and land line phone numbers, it takes a diligent effort to keep information current.)

Just some observations from my experience.

Categorized in: Management