ALL plans must be tested on a regular basis!
Tip – Process owners should bring their plans to tabletops and workstation area recovery exercises. They should use them as-is during the exercise.
Tip – Plans and strategies must be validated. Our goal is to identify gaps preventing the plan from working – before a real disaster occurs.
Tip – During testing, process owners will often discover gaps and updates they must make to their plans including:
- Incorrect RTO
- Incorrect recovery seats required during various time-frames
- Critical systems not listed in their plan
- Employees that are no longer part of their process that remain in their plan
- New employees that must be added to their plan
- Recovery team members no longer in their department
- Equipment
- Vendors
- Customers
- Customer facing critical toll free phone numbers not listed in their plan
- Tasks that must be added, deleted or modified to recover their department
To fully validate plans and identify gaps, use multiple types of tests including those listed in this part of the book. The last thing you want to discover are gaps during a crisis. My advice is to start testing and hunting today.