If you have a fire extinguisher at home or on the job, you no doubt get it inspected regularly to make sure it’s properly charged. If you have an emergency generator, it’s common practice to give it an occasional trial run to make sure that you can count on it to run smoothly in the event of a power outage. Doesn’t it then stand to reason that if your business has a disaster recovery backup plan, that you test it out to make sure it works? Because it’s pretty much an accepted fact that saying “I’m sure it’ll work fine when the time comes” is no guarantee of success.

If only it were this simple!

Any business worth its salt has a disaster recovery plan (or plans, plural, geared towards alleviating particular disasters) drawn up. Your company can’t afford to incur any downtime; such an occurrence can result in a loss of customers. Let’s cover a few points about why testing is critical to success, and what kind of things you can do to test your plan out.

No Situation Is Static

A healthy business is always growing and evolving. As a result, the measures that were in place during the company’s founding may now be insufficient to handle this more developed, more complex company.

The scary thing is, many companies don’t even test their backup plans regularly. Full-scale tests are costly, so a lot of businesses conduct partial tests perhaps once a quarter. And yet, if your business is growing and changing, that big plan may not work; something you don’t want to find out as the disaster is unfolding.

It’s A Great Way To Check For Leaks

What’s the best way to test if something is water-tight? Pour some water into it and see if it leaks. So following that logic, what’s the best way to test your disaster recovery plan? Run through a simulated disaster and see what happens; see if there are any “leaks”. In this case, instead of a hole in a boat, you’re looking for holes in your plan.

If there are areas that your plan didn’t cover, a test run will show those shortcomings. After all, it’s hard to think of everything the first time around.

You Learn If People Are Paying Attention

There’s a case to be made for dividing a disaster recovery plan into two basic components: the procedures, and the personnel that carry them out. By running a test, you not only find out if the plan is good, but also if everyone in fact knows their roles, where they’re supposed to be, what they do, etc. Call it a dress rehearsal to see if the performers know their lines.

How To Test A Backup Plan

You need to start any test with a checklist, that spell out the objectives, the scenario, the responsibilities of the staff, and who gets notified. There are other elements you can add to the backup checklist, depending on your business. The checklist should include things like securing backup power, data storage, and other items for preparedness.

The next step would be a walk-through involving the staff, conducting a group reading, much like actors doing a script read-through. Remember the previous reference to a dress rehearsal? It all makes sense, since a recovery plan test is a sort of role-playing scenario.

The most crucial step is the surprise test. In other words, spring an unannounced disaster drill on your people. Disasters as a rule are impolite things that don’t give you a warning. Therefore, the most effective disaster practice run will be one conducted under actual combat conditions, so to speak.

Hopefully, you won’t ever have to implement your plan for real. But if you do, you and your business will be ready for it. There are other measures you can take to keep your company infrastructure safe from damage, such as bulletproofing your computer system. Ultimately, though, it pays to be prepared for the worst.

Have you checked your backup lately?