Disaster Recovery Teams
People are the key to executing and operate the recovery processes. It must be appropriately selected, evaluated, trained and re-trained so that they are equipped with the correct mindset, skill sets, and tools to execute the DR Plan.
The DR teams are be divided into the various specific types of teams to take care of the individual systems and functions. The size of team, name of team and team structure should be based on the DR requirements of the organization.
DR Management Team
The Recovery Management team includes:
- Recovery Manager (Usually the Organization DR Coordinator)
- Facilities Coordinator
- Technical Coordinator
- Administrative Coordinator
- Network Coordinator
- Applications Coordinator
- Computer Operations Coordinator
Business Recovery Teams (Non-IT)
Some key business recovery teams include the following:
- Executive Management Team
- Business Recovery Team
- Business Unit Recovery Team
- Damage Assessment Team
- Facility Support Team
- Administrative Support Team
- Logistics Support Team
- Transportation and Relocation Team
- User Support Team
- Media Relations Team
- Legal Affairs Team
- Physical/Personal Security Team
- Human Resources Team
- Procurement (Equipment and Supplies) Team
- Marketing and Customer Relations team
Disaster Recovery Teams (IT)
The DR team includes the following:
- Computer Recovery Team
- Computer Backup Team
- Offsite Storage Team
- Software Recovery Team
- Communication Team
- Applications Team
- Computer Restoration Team
- Systems Software Team
- Network Operations Recovery Team
- Database Recovery Team
- Application Recovery Team(s)
- Hardware Salvage Team
Staff Selection Criteria
Staff selection criteria for the recovery teams should be based on:
- Skill-sets and business knowledge. Ideally, teams should be staffed with the personnel responsible for the same or similar operation under normal conditions. For example, Server Recovery Team members should include server administrators.
- Staffing and sizing of the team must be optimized and remain viable, even if some members are unavailable to respond.
- Team members’ alternation is one of the ways to address staff unavailability issues. Thus, team members have to be familiar with the goals and procedures of other teams to facilitate inter-team coordination.
- The team leader must be identified to direct overall team operations, thus, he or she must be well-equipped with the knowledge, macro viewing capability and with a firm nature to be responsible for disseminating information to team members, and approve any decision that must be made within the team.
Guidance by DR Management Team
The DR Management Team is necessary for providing overall guidance following a major system disruption or emergency. The team is usually led by the Chief Information Officer (CIO) or equivalent or someone with the authority to make decisions regarding spending levels, acceptable risk, and inter-organization coordination. Thus, the staff selected to be in the DR Management team must be:
- Able and capable of making a management decision on activating the DR Plan and supervising the execution of DR operations.
- Capable of facilitating communication among other teams and supervising plan tests and exercises.
Thus, the correct personnel with the correct attitude, capability, and skill-sets when put into the correct position in the DR organization structure will ensure the correct execution of the DR Plan and achieve successful results as intended in the DR Plan.
