IT Disaster Recovery Planning: Who Should Be Involved?

IT disasters can disrupt you entire business – from manufacturing to procurement, operations, HR, Finance, Customer Support, and IT. To that end, common sense would suggest that the entire business be involved in IT disaster recovery and planning activities – that means every department.

However, some organizations put the brunt of the IT disaster recovery planning on mid-level personnel in the IT department, mistakenly believing that only IT should be involved rather than a broader representation from all areas, and even executives. The result: incomplete and inadequate business continuity plans that do not take into account the needs of the end-to-end business, and cost significantly more when it comes to resources and downtime.

It is imperative to establish an IT disaster recovery planning committee that includes key members from departments across the organization. Include decision makers from all departments, as well as financial associates, customer service representatives, and IT personnel.

Your IT disaster recovery plan will need to include a list of all group members along with their contact information, roles, and responsibilities in your disaster recovery plan. Having an IT disaster recovery plan in place is a good step, but you need to ensure everyone knows their role. In short, these individuals must be ready and able to flawlessly execute your plan in the event of a disaster.

In addition, this list should include a substitute for everyone on it, as area-wide disasters may affect people, not just IT equipment.

Only when the committee is established can you proceed with the rest of your Disaster Recovery activities, such as risk analysis, recovery priorities and outlining of strategies.

To find out more, check out the white paper titled, How to Develop an Effective IT DR Plan.