Well, we’re now shoulder deep in planning and strategies after 4, likely very eye opening, phases. It’s time to practice what we’ve preached and worked so very hard to accomplish to this point.
To recap we’ve:
- Figured out what a disaster means to the company and what constitutes a disaster in the first place
- Aligned business operations, flow, departments, internal and external resources and vendors with our disaster scenarios
- Outlined the solutions for each disaster scenario as they pertain to each of the items in Phase 2 and now have a spreadsheet the size of Rhode Island
- Just completed the rough draft of what the final plan should look like.
Now we put it all together, physically, virtually and whatever other ways have been outlined from Phase 3 efforts. It’s time to implement:
- Hardware
- Software
- Redundancy
- New Policies
- Controls
- New Data Storage
- New Communications lines and equipment
- Fine tuning and efficiency optimizing everywhere
- Water-Power-Electricity protection and backup
- Human Resources Changes
- and any new or altered external resources or services that have been defined in the plan
Once sections or implementation phases are completed, individual tests can be done along the way to make sure procedures and processes and support are all in line with the draft plan from Phase 4. Once the entire implementation phase is completed, run specific drills, training sessions, and general testing to make sure everything that has been implemented works as expected during your mock-disaster testing.
Finally, make specific notes as to the changes or updates that will be required after testing is complete so the next phase can go as easily and smooth as possible.
Next, we put it all together for the final product….Phase 6
