Question

Explain each of five elements necessary for a disaster plan.

Draft a 250 - 300 word discussion explaining the your answer in detail. Support your answer by citing the scholarly articles you found.

Answer 1

A disaster is a sudden accident/natural catastrophe with a dynamic mechanism. It begins when a hazard is activated, and will then flow in the form of an event series to produce losses (Iyer and Mastorakis, 2)¹. A disaster plan aims to help people and organizations avoid the threats posed by impending disasters and to conceptualize and put forward certain resources, plans, as well as mechanisms to ensure that adequate assistance will be there when these risks actually occur. Therefore, a disaster plan may include provisions for preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation. Disaster plans may also be quite specific, as in the case of a disaster recovery plan for recovering the electronic and technological data in case a disaster occurs. The 5 important elements of a disaster recovery plan are given below.

Creating the disaster response/recovery team- a disaster plan may be quite necessary for all professional organizations (Gulik, 101)^2. Expert, skilled, qualified, and knowledgeable professionals are selected and made responsible for conceptualizing, implementing, as well as maintaining the disaster plan. The contact information, as well as the responsibilities and roles played by the team members, is clearly defined. Information about who will be reached out to and contacted in case an emergency or disaster occurs is also contained in the plan.

Identification and assessment of disaster risks- an organization needs to assess all kinds of risks and disasters that may occur to it. These may include man-made disasters and emergencies, natural disasters, as well as other disasters like incidents related to technology and data. Such assessment and identification help a firm identify the important resources as well as recovery strategies that can provide the best results within an acceptable time frame.

Determining the critical documents, applications, and resources- it is also important for the company to know the most important and critical operational areas. A disaster plan typically focuses on issues related to short-term survival (for instance revenues and cash flows). While doing so, the organization should also take into account the most critical processes that may never be delayed. For instance, the processing of payrolls is an important and critical process.

Specifying the backup procedures- the disaster plan should clearly describe the methods to be adopted for preparedness. For instance, for an information technology disaster plan, a firm should identify and describe the location of the backup and its frequency. Important information is to be stored securely and regularly may include the inventory records, contact information, vendor and customer listings, and others. The information may also be stored in any offsite region or location.

Testing and maintaining the disaster plan- the external and internal circumstances may undergo changes continually and hence the organizations should also evaluate the procedures for their appropriateness and effectiveness. The disaster plan should be updated regularly to ensure that all the accommodations have been made.

References:

1. Iyer, G.V., Mastorakis, N. “Important Elements of Disaster Management and Mitigation and Design and Development of A Software Tool”. Semantic Scholar. 2006, Retrieved from <https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/79c0/b9a4da34cc07fea72e9dcad1c036626a0b1c.pdf>. Accessed 8 July 2020.

2. Gulik, Robien Van. “Disaster Planning”.n.d., Retrieved from <https://cool.culturalheritage.org/iada/ta95_101.pdf>. Accessed 8 July 2020.