Whether you’re a front-line employee running a 24/7 support help desk or the CIO that oversees the support staff, knowing what to do if a server crashes, the power goes out, or your building is destroyed can mean the difference between inconveniencing your users and seriously disrupting your enterprise—not to mention your career.

If you’re putting together your contingency plan or want to update the one you have on file, download our checklist of elements your plan should include. The checklist comes from Greg Kelley, who oversees the help desk at Solon, OH-based SS&G Technology Consulting.

His company used a contingency plan during a phone outage. Following the plan’s guidelines, the company called its phone carrier and spoke with a representative to have the phone lines automatically forwarded to designated cellular phones, which had call waiting and voice mail capabilities.

They recorded new prompts on the cellular phone voice mails to reflect the fact that the phones were temporarily company phones—and then they went about their business.

”There was no interruption of service and not a single dissatisfied customer,” Kelley said, “all thanks to the information outlined in our contingency plan.”

Kelley recommends that a contingency plan be distributed to all senior management, as well as stored in a safety deposit box. After all, what good is a contingency document on your server if the server has just been burnt to a crisp in a fire?
If you’ve read our download and found something missing, tell us. Send us an e-mail with your suggestions or start a discussion below.