The chance that you could successfully recover and meet your recovery objectives is zero. Yet Forrester finds that exercising DR plans is one area in which many organizations continue to fall short.
Although most enterprises claim they conduct a full exercise of their DR plans at least once per year, anecdotal evidence suggests that the majority of these exercises are not comprehensive and thorough; enterprises often just exercise a portion of the plan or a subset of applications. Indeed, many of the organizations Forrester has spoken with know that they need to improve their DR exercise program, but face barriers such as a lack of executive support, limited employee resources, and a fear of interrupting business processes.
If this sounds all too familiar, consider the following 10 best practices for updating and improving your current DR exercise program:
1. Define Specific Exercise Objectives Upfront
2. Include Business Stakeholders
3. Rotate Staff Responsibilities
4. Develop Specific Risk Scenarios For Your Exercises
5. Run Joint Exercises With Business Continuity (BC) Teams
6. Vary Exercise Types From Technical Tests to Walk-Throughs
7. Make Sure to Test All IT Infrastructure Concurrently at Least Once Per Year
8. Identify Members for the Core DR Response Team
9. Learn From Your Mistakes
10. Report Results to Stakeholders
