When the time comes to run a marathon, will all of the training be enough to carry you across the finish line? Did all of the countless hours spent practicing the piano prepare you for the annual recital? When a massive power outage affects the campus and systems go offline, will the disaster recovery plan that you worked months to create be dependable and help your team restore services quickly?
Will you be ready to perform when the time comes to deliver? Preparations are critical for the challenges we will face in our personal and professional lives.
You wouldn't register for a 26.2 mile race without having ever laced up a pair of running shoes, and the chances of sitting down at a piano with little practice and playing Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21 are slim without the proper preparation.
What good is a disaster recovery plan if it's never been tested? How can you ensure that the processes will work as documented and that the teams will be prepared? You must document and communicate the plan, and then schedule a test event and force the systems into a disaster-like scenario. Following the evaluation of the plan, schedule a hot wash exercise to walk through the findings with each of the teams responsible for ensuring business continuity, and then communicate to the impacted areas of the business with the information necessary for maintaining order in the wake of a major outage.