Separating the emergency manual, business continuity plan and recovery plan correctly

Every plan has a clear user and trigger

The emergency manual describes alerting, escalation and how the dedicated response organisation works. Business continuity plans are addressed to the responsible business units. Recovery and restoration plans bring technical or infrastructural resources back into operation.

Plans must stay readable under stress

A good plan starts with the trigger, the objective, the role and the first actions. Dependencies, prerequisites and abort criteria belong directly at the relevant step – not in a separate fundamentals chapter.

• Short, action-oriented steps
• Contact details and alternatives available offline
• Version, owner and last test visible
• Explicitly plan the return to normal operation