The Disaster Incident Response Team
My previous two articles have set the stage for formulation of the disaster Incident Response Team. This team has several core members for which I will provide some key checklists. When formulating this team, we will take in to account the critical processes, dependencies, existing personnel and their roles and the needs we will have based upon the threats we are planning to mitigate. The list of roles may need to be adjusted based upon each businesses unique characteristics, resources, and threats.
The tab I use in my spread sheet for the Incident Response team is where I identify the people and their titles and then I link to specific tabs containing the check sheets for each role. I specifically note that there are actions for FIRST PERSON ON SCENE no matter what their role is in the disaster. I will also list the Incident Team members contact information or link to it as appropriate if that information is already provided in the employee contact list. Please note that alternates are also listed for each team role. You may also need to click on the screen shots to increase the readability of the images.
The following screen shots are provided for the checklist tabs I link to for each role These are samples only and will need to be customized as necessary for each business because there may be specific responsibilities and actions required that are different based upon each businesses details. These difference may require some different responses. It is important to remember that what I am presenting to you is a generalized framework, which will need to be adapted to the specific needs of your business. The critical processes, dependencies, resources, roles, threats and action needed for your business need to be what is applicable to your needs. The purpose of the DR is to put the planning and forethought together to meet the specific needs of your business before a disaster happens. The needs for each business will be similar at a high level but will be different in many details. Some examples that may not apply are: Emergency Operations Center (EOC), grant writing, Hot Sites, EAP, Emergency Hot Line, references to Foundation, Department, State, and Agency, etc..
The below screen shot is the checklist for the first person on scene.
The next screen shot is the checklist for the Incident Commander.
The next screen shot is the checklist for the Finance Coordinator.
The next screen shot is the checklist for the Administrative Coordination.
The next three screen shots are the checklist for IT & Telcom Coordination, Suggested Hardware Recovery Order as well as a set of Tabletop Simulation Suggestions. Remember that a DR is only as good as its implementation. A Tabletop simulation of the DR helps people train to perform their roles before a real disaster occurs.
The next screen shot is the checklist for Human Resource Coordination.
The next screen shot is a checklist for Public Relations & Communications Coordination.
Finally, the next is a screen shot of the Program Coordination checklist.
Summary of the Incident Response Team
As I think of the actions and responses from the really awful events of January 6, 2021 in Washington DC, it becomes even more apparent to me that we all to take Disaster Recovery and Incident Response much more seriously.
My next articles will cover examples of specific threat response and some of the other tabs in my Disaster Recover spread sheet.