Being Prepared

Certainly the disaster caused by Hurricane Katrina has affected all of us, even if we weren’t directly in the storm’s path. And certainly it has caused us all to think about being better prepared for disasters.

Following are five concepts that can frame a disaster plan, and some steps that put these concepts to work.

1. The first concept is that disaster planning must include a recovery plan. For my small company on the east central coast of Florida, the recovery plan is at least as important as the emergency plan.
2. There are multiple threats, so there must be multiple contingencies. On the Florida coast, hurricanes are the greatest threat, but there are other threats that could put us out of business like lightning, tornados and flooding. Although Florida is not threatened by snow storms, ice storms or earthquakes, those are threats others should consider. And not all threats are from natural disasters. There are fires, incapacitated owners and disasters in other parts of the world that can affect any company.
3. Begin with the end in mind. Describe what your company must be like if you must recover from a disaster. For some threats, this may need to be broken into stages of recovery.
4. The objective of disaster planning should be preventing loss of competencies and assets. Most often it seems that we think first of assets. But if a company loses its competencies, the assets are only worth their liquidation value. Competencies reside in our people. Protect competencies as vigorously as assets.
5. An untested plan is an incomplete plan. It may be difficult to test some parts of a disaster plan and somewhere between impractical and impossible to test others. But test your plan as much as is practical.

With these five concepts as the framework of your plan, here are some steps to flesh it out:

• Set a time frame to achieve functionality after a disaster. Our company’s vision is that if our city is wiped out, we can be functional in another place in 48 hours.
• List the types and degrees of disasters you will plan for. Remember that a disaster does not have to be local to be disruptive.
• Under each type and degree of disaster, list the company competencies and assets that are at risk. For example, the loss of certain travel routes may only affect delivery, while the loss of electricity affects billing.
• Create a decision model that guides implementation of your plan. In our case, the decision model says that if our city is in wind greater than 100 mph within 36 hours we will enact the hurricane disaster plan. (Our buildings are rated for wind speed of 120 mph, so our plan is not as reckless as it may sound.) This removes the last-minute decision that is often too late.
• List each company function and competency to help you think of all the steps that may be needed to restore them. Think of it like an organizational chart.

List the company function. Under the function list the processes, such as billing. Under each process, list the objective of the process, i.e., submit claims, identify and document monies owed to the company by or on behalf of its customers. Finally, under each process list the people and assets required for that process to be functional.

• Keep emergency contact information and channels for all critical personnel. You may want to have a company-sponsored evacuation point.
• Be sure all posting, scanning and other documentation is current and backed up. If evacuation is required under your plan, make two back-ups and let different people have them. Test the recovery of data. Not all software has a reliable or easy-to-use recovery utility.
• Your recovery plan should include: how to establish initial communications; where to reconvene; how to assess the loss; instructions for recovering each process, including how to get computers, restore data and communicate with both insiders and outsiders; capital acquisition; customer relations and vendor relations.

Put your plan in writing, distribute it and make sure your staff reviews it periodically.

Wallace Weeks is founder and president of Weeks Group Inc., a Melbourne, Fla.-based strategy consulting firm. He can be reached at 321/752-4514 or by e-mail at [email protected].