Page 1321 - (ISC)² CISSP Certified Information Systems Security Professional Official Study Guide

Recovery Plan Development

Once you’ve established your business unit priorities and have a good
idea of the appropriate alternative recovery sites for your organization,
it’s time to put pen to paper and begin drafting a true disaster recovery

plan. Don’t expect to sit down and write the full plan in one sitting. It’s
likely that the DRP team will go through many draft documents before
reaching a final written document that satisfies the operational needs
of critical business units and falls within the resource, time, and
expense constraints of the disaster recovery budget and available

personnel.
In the following sections, we explore some important items to include

in your disaster recovery plan. Depending on the size of your
organization and the number of people involved in the DRP effort, it
may be a good idea to maintain multiple types of plan documents,
intended for different audiences. The following list includes various
types of documents worth considering:

Executive summary providing a high-level overview of the plan

Department-specific plans

Technical guides for IT personnel responsible for implementing
and maintaining critical backup systems

Checklists for individuals on the disaster recovery team

Full copies of the plan for critical disaster recovery team members

Using custom-tailored documents becomes especially important when
a disaster occurs or is imminent. Personnel who need to refresh
themselves on the disaster recovery procedures that affect various
parts of the organization will be able to refer to their department-

specific plans. Critical disaster recovery team members will have
checklists to help guide their actions amid the chaotic atmosphere of a
disaster. IT personnel will have technical guides helping them get the
alternate sites up and running. Finally, managers and public relations
personnel will have a simple document that walks them through a

high-level view of the coordinated symphony that is an active disaster