CIO —
How would you execute on your disaster recovery and business continuity plan if you had less than 30 percent of employees available and no idea how to locate the rest?
Do you know if your emergency generators have enough fuel to last more than 24 hours? On what floor are they located?
Is CISD part of your disaster recovery plan? Do you even know what CISD is?
If you don’t have solid answers to these kinds of questions, the bad news is that your disaster recovery plan is lacking. And you’re not alone. According to a recent survey, 22 percent of CIOs don’t even have a disaster recovery plan and of those who do, only 31 percent rate that plan as extremely or very effective.
The good news, said Paul Saffo, is that in this post-Katrina, pre-flu pandemic environment, there’s a brief window of opportunity for you to do something about it.
Saffo moderated this panel made up of eight CIOs from across the country – some affected by the devastation in the Gulf, others whose organizations are helping in the recovery - along with representatives from first responder and government entities. They talked about their recent -- often very personal -- experiences with natural disasters and offered hard won advice. After the panel, the audience broke up into work groups to brainstorm about ways CIOs can help each other and first responders in dealing with disasters.
Following are some snippets from the eye-opening panel and audience discussion.
* What most surprised you during or after Katrina hit?
“The biggest surprise was just how little sleep the human body needs to function normally.”
David Clarke (who joined the panel by phone)
Vice President & CTO
The American Red Cross
“That the issues identified after 09/11 hadn’t been fixed.”
Chief, Command, Control & Communications Div., Pacific Region
US Coast Guard
“We have disasters all the time in
CIO
SBC Communications, Inc.
“We realized we had business continuity plan, but we didn’t have a community continuity plan.”
General Manager,
Chevron
“The biggest surprise for me was [that] people were surprised that so many organizations were not prepared.”
Acting Director, National Cyber Security Division
Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
“The biggest challenge was how to operate when so many management employees were not there to pull together as response to the crisis. So we had to create a temporary organization to do the recovery work.”
