Regardless of whether a disaster is natural or man-made, if you do not react quickly to the circumstances, then things can quickly become much worse. This is why it can be a good idea to understand how to create a disaster recovery plan for your project team. This is something that you should cover during any good training courses for project managers, but it’s always wise to refresh yourself. With this in mind, we offer some useful tips.
Creating a plan
It is unavoidable that disasters can happen. However, recovery should always be carefully planned. A disaster recovery plan, much like many of the other plans involved in project management, is made up of a number of steps.
A good disaster plan will:
- Involve a set of tools, policies and procedures
- Enable the recovery and then the continuation of any technology that is critical, any systems and infrastructures
- Come into immediate effect following a disaster
- Focus on the necessary information and technology systems that are needed to support the critical factors of a project
- Be considered a simple part of business continuity
Why should we care about disaster recovery?
There are a number of reasons that we should care about disaster recovery, and one of the main reasons is linked to any systems data, and IT projects that a company might have. This is something that has become increasingly important, not only to businesses but also to countries in recent years.
Downtime costs money, and even for a smaller company, this can be a staggering amount that can quickly mount up and become a significant loss. If the disaster is not dealt with in a prompt enough manner, then these losses have the potential to cripple a company to the extent that it may even be financially unviable for them to continue operating. This may not be an immediate consequence, but there is a good possibility that this could be something that would take place in the near future.
At a higher level, if you put plans in place that involve a continual backing up of data and testing, then you will have a point to fall back to in the event of a disaster. This can help you to recover in a much quicker way.
What to think about in a disaster recovery plan
Here, we ask Parallel Project Management Training what, when creating a plan, it is important to consider. They advise:
- Develop a notification network that makes it easy to reach everyone and have emergency contacts not only for staff but also for any necessary external contacts
- Consider what the scope of the recovery should be
- Ensure that you have a disaster recovery team, and make sure you know the responsibility each member of the team has. This should include team leaders and those with management team responsibilities.
The best practices for a disaster recovery plan.
Finally, there are three rather important things that you should consider, the “best practices” that you need when developing a successful disaster recovery plan:
- 1. Once you have your plan, practice your recovery. This will ensure that in the event of a disaster, you are much better prepared.
- 2. Review your processes on a regular basis
- 3. Always ensure that you are backing up and confirming
Doing so will ensure you’re prepared for untoward events that could significantly impact your business.