Disaster Recovery Journal Summer 2024

18 DISASTER RECOVERY JOURNAL | SUMMER 2024 Rehearsing Plan B: The Importance of Mastering Your Workarounds By RICHARD LONG I n terms of bang for the buck, not all business continuity activities are created equal. One of the most valuable ways BC practitioners can spend their time is making sure their organizations can truly execute on their manual workarounds. Rehearsing Your Plan B Due to the complexity of BC method ology, many aspects of the field have the potential to become time sinks. It’s not hard to spend hundreds of hours a year doing BIAs, gap analyses, risk assess ments, developing recovery strategies, and writing recovery plans.

Pursued purposefully, these are all worthwhile activities. However, there is one activity most BC offices tend to neglect – and pound for pound it is one of the most worthwhile ways a BC professional can spend his or her time. This activity is as practical as making sure you have the tools, equipment, and skill needed to change a flat tire. Not only making sure you have these things but val idating your capability by doing the task. The activity could be described as rehearsing your Plan B, or, alternately, mastering your workarounds. Closing the Circle Most of the people who read this pub lication work for organizations that have developed recovery plans, that incorporate manual workarounds for their mission critical business processes. This is to be commended.