How Do You Write a Disaster Recovery Plan?

A Backup Article Contributed by Melissa Larose

How Do You Write a Disaster Recovery Plan?

Effective documentation when writing a disaster recovery plan is vital to the successful implementation of the plan. Finding out during a disaster that procedures to be followed have been poorly written can be frustrating and possibly devastating to your business and your employees. To reduce reading and comprehension time a well-written plan is essential and can result in a better outcome and opportunity for success. Being brief, clear, and to the point is helpful when everyone is working on adrenaline and little to no sleep.

Choose a Standard Format for a Disaster Recovery Plan

Develop a standard format to use when writing and composing the disaster recovery plan procedures. This is especially important to do when you have more than one person writing the plan. Template development that is adhered to and a final approval through someone that is a stickler for conformity can provide a consistency to your plan.

A disaster recovery plan will usually include several types of information. The first is usually background information. This will include the purpose and scope of the paln and the particular procedure being describes. It can also include reference material, descriptions of forms, authorizations and policies.

The second type of information would instructional. This information needs to be clear in its order and subject. Develop a heading standard that includes a subject category number and a brief description along with a page number, a revision number and a date of revision. The reader should be able to find their way through the pages in a clear manner. Look to ISO (International Standards Organization) for clear documentations standards.

The Actual Writing Style of a Disaster Recovery Plan

A disaster recovery plan is read by everyone in the company no matter what role they play and, therefore, must be written clearly and simply without a lot of jargon. Be specific and assume that they person reading the documentation and possibly following and implementing it will be unfamiliar with the procedure. Do this by using short, simple, and direct sentences. Do not overwhelm the reader with detailed and long-winded explanations.

Use Topic headings that describe in a short but clear manner what you are about to describe. Avoid using particular personal names and instead use the title of the position. This will prevent you from the need to revise to often.

Disaster Recovery Plan Do's and Don'ts

It's important not to make anyone person or gender a part of the final document. References such as these may be misinterpreted or taken personally. So to prevent this, avoid gender nouns and pronouns. Just because your administrative staff is all women, do not refer the women directly in your documentation.

And finally, you will want to develop uniformity for your procedures. This uniformity can simplify the training process and help to minimize exceptions to the actions needing to be taken. Exceptions in a disaster recovery plan can sometimes become roadblocks to successful recovery unless they are presented in a clear and precise manner.