Do you want to keep your recovery team personnel sharp, thinking on their feet, and the BCP process fresh in their minds? We all want multiple half-day exercises each year to entrench our recovery teams in the process, but who gets that much time made available to them?
We have come up with a way to keep our teams engaged using 30-minute mock disaster exercises in addition to the annual half-day exercise. So, what is the format for such an exercise? Here is what we do:
- Present a short scenario outlying the event at hand and what is known (2 to 3 minutes)
- Request the Team to address the Crisis Management aspects dealing with the immediate tactical needs of the scenario (10 minutes)
- Request the Team to address the Crisis Leadership aspects dealing with the long-term issues associated with their decisions, business cycle, etc. (10 minutes)
- Follow up and action items (5 to 7 minutes)
Regular short exercises make the team focus on the task at hand and not lose sight at what needs to be accomplished. Use a timer to keep them focused and document what they come up with for each component of the exercise. Update your plans as needed.
Good Luck!
About MHA: MHA Consulting, with its decade-long track record, is a proven leader in business continuity planning, disaster recovery planning, IT best practices and data center moves and relocations. Every day, MHA helps protect trillions of dollars of global-market assets and top companies around the world rely on MHA services for the continuity of their business. For more information, contact Michael Herrera at Herrera at mha-it.com.
