Forming Disaster Recovery and Emergency Response Teams: Team Duties and Responsibilities
- Executive Management Team
- Central Support Team (Proceeds to the EMT Headquarters)
- Affected Site Team (Proceeds to the Damaged or Affected Site)
- Determining the Need for Additional Teams
- Equipment Recovery Team (Proceeds to Affected Site)
- Equipment Installation Team Leader (Proceeds to Backup Site)
- Systems Software and Data Retrieval Team
- Additional Teams to Consider (Exercise!)
- Summary
Last month we took our first shot at establishing effective Disaster Recovery and Response teams. In that first of this three-article series, we asked you to note that you may actually be operating in two, three, or even four different locations after a disaster.
Some teams are required to coordinate restoration of damaged equipment and infrastructure at the damaged facility. Others might be required to set up a new alternate work location across town or across the country to conduct business until the original facility is restored.
A third set of teams will probably have to support the Executive Management Team (EMT) administratively in the processing of incoming reports as well as in the general dissemination of information to subordinate teams.
All this means is that more teams, each with unique responsibilities and needs in a disaster, might be necessary than you first thought.
This month we will discuss the individual responsibilities of the subordinate teams and how they interface with the EMT in the recovery process. Depending on the size and complexity of your plan you might not use all these teams, but these examples should get the thought process rolling on how to set recovery goals and delegate responsibility in a disaster.
Executive Management Team
Consider the following diagram of an Executive Management Team (EMT), shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1 Executive Management team