What, Me Worry?

I'm sure that I'm dating myself, but as a kid, I loved Mad Magazine and the iconic Alfred E. Neuman. (Wikipedia Link). His famous quote is often triggered when I speak with IT colleagues about their company's business continuity and disaster recovery plans.


I generally see organizations in one of three general phases:

What, Me Worry?
This is usually the result of either:

• Naïveté: There are no plans because they don't understand that even seemingly low risk environments / locations are still at risk.
• Poor Prioritization: the plans are on a to-do list, but other activities are always 'more important.'

Psychic
They believe they've foreseen every situation and obstacle, accounted for the impact, and documented the perfect response. As a result, testing is a waste of time.

Seasoned
They've likely been through one or both of the other two, and experienced a disaster, or near miss. As a result, they've realized (a) having a plan is critical, (b) the plan needs to be regularly exercised, and the more realistic the better, and (c) the plan will never be done or perfect, so you need to keep an open mind and be flexible.

I'd like to recommend the following general process that can be used to mature you position, no matter which phase you are in.

1. Create / update your inventory: You need to track down every resource - technology, processes, and the people that make it all work.
2. Prioritize: Create a cross functional team to prioritize the inventory starting with "the company can't operate without that!" to "unnecessary". This will help you prioritize your investments (people and dollars) for the next steps.
3. Plan: Start at the top, and for each item develop a back up plan. This can range from having paper forms and calculators to complex, highly reliable systems.
4. Exercise: The more realistic the better. If possible, include people that haven't helped with the earlier steps try to follow the plans and identify gaps, issues, etc.
5. Repeat: As the say, "The only constant is change." Priorities, people, technology, and everything else will change - sometimes without notice.

What tips do you have for preparing for disasters?