There is a disaster.

WHO? what? WhErE?
When? what does that mean?
What do I need to do? What shouldn’t I do?
Do I need to contact anyone?


Obviously it’s important to keep a business up and running no matter what may try to prevent it. Businesses need contingency plans in order to anticipate any disasters or potential problems. But in order to insure a good ‘restart’ and maintain a calm atmosphere, you must be able to contact your employees and answer any questions they have. A confused worker will be unsure of the course of action required to accomplish the goals of the firm.

A good start to Contingency plans can be found by listening to or reading work by Emergency Managers. The four bases of what they do can be seen as:

1. Preparedness
2. Mitigation
3. Response
4. Recovery

These broad topics are great foundations for businesses to build procedures on.


More specifically, some companies start contingency plans using these steps:

Business Impact Analysis
Contingency Planning
Contingency Audit and Assurance
Risk Analysis
Service Level Agreements
ISO 17799
( http://www.business-continuity-world.com/ )



OR BETTER YET (NOTE THE COMMUNICATION) :

1. Establish Organizational Planning Guidelines
2. Business Impact Analysis (the Risk Assessment)
3. Develop detailed Contingency Plans
4. Validate
5. Communicate the Plan

( http://www.technologybestpractices.com/contingencyplanning.htm )



Following model taken from Wikipedia.com:
BUSINESS CONTINUITY PLANNING LIFE CYCLE
(all this is in a continuous circle leading to the next point)

->maintainance -> Analyisis -> Solution Design -> immplementation -> testing & Acceptance ->

Sample Plans:

Excellent Sample Plans - Submitted by Ed Pearce (EAB Member)

BRP - Development Guide - (Word Document)

www.drj.com/new2dr/samples.htm (disaster recovery journal)

CLEAR WATER OIL COMPANY PLAN:
http://www.epa.gov/oilspill/pdfs/guidance/F_ContingencyPlan.doc


Something Interesting: http://www.ifnews.com/