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IT and communications continuity pack

The technology half of a continuity plan: phones, contact centre, connectivity and the systems people work in. It is the half most plans handle worst, because it is usually written by somebody describing what the technology does rather than what happens when it stops.

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What is inside

Three parts, six pages

Written to be adapted and used during an incident rather than admired in a folder.

01

What actually goes wrong, ranked honestly

Ordered by how often we see it rather than how dramatic it sounds. The connection at one site taking phones and every cloud system with it comes first, because it is the most common disruption and the one most plans never name.

02

A plan short enough to be read under pressure

Roles, recovery objectives per system, and five scenario responses that each state the first action, who decides and who communicates. One page per scenario at most.

03

The two hour test that finds the gaps

Restore something and time it. Divert a real number and put it back. Have the backup administrator log in. Read the plan aloud from the printed copy. Each one reliably finds something the document did not.

04

Five questions to put to your providers

Including the availability they actually achieved rather than the figure in the service level agreement, and what happens to calls in progress when a site loses connectivity.

Scope

What this covers, and what it does not

Being clear about the boundary is what makes the document useful rather than generic.

It covers the technology half

Voice, contact centre, connectivity, email and file access, and the line of business systems people work in. If you already have a whole-of-business plan, this fills the gap in it.

Use it alongside a broader plan

It does not cover the rest

Pandemic planning, evacuation, insurance, succession and supply chain belong in a whole-of-business plan and are somebody else expertise. We have left them out rather than covered them badly.

Not a whole-of-business plan

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Common questions

Questions about the pack

What people ask before giving an email address for something.

What does it cost?

Nothing. We are vendor funded, so the service costs your business nothing.

Will I be added to a sales sequence?

No. You receive the pack, and we contact you only if you ask us to.

We already have a business continuity plan. Is this useful?

Usually yes, because the technology section of most plans is the thinnest part. Read part one against your existing plan and see whether the failures listed there are actually covered.

What are recovery time and recovery point objectives?

How long a system can be unavailable before the damage is unacceptable, and how much recent work you can afford to lose. Agree both with the person who carries the consequence rather than the person who runs the system.

Do we need to test it?

An untested plan is a document. Two hours once a year finds more than a rewrite ever will, and part three tells you exactly what to do in those two hours.

Where should the plan be stored?

Somewhere that does not depend on what has failed. A plan stored only in the file system it is meant to recover, or behind the single sign-on that has just been compromised, is not a plan.

We are vendor funded and completely free to your business. Always focused on the right outcome.

Most continuity gaps are procurement decisions

A single connection carrying voice and everything else, no diverse path at the site that matters, a support commitment that does not cover the hours you operate. All contract decisions, and all cheaper to change at renewal.