Recovery teams should be developed specific to the contingency planning needs of each agency. Team development depends on the size and complexity of the tasks that need to be accomplished for planning and recovery. The following teams reflect the tasks at hand.

Administration. This team reports to the command center to support the emergency management team and the business recovery coordinators; provides administrative support services, including travel and lodging, petty cash disbursement, notifications to customers, and preparation of all reports for the recovery operation.

Business Function Recovery. This team responds to and manages any serious interruption to specific business function operations; develops recovery strategies and procedures based on a business impact analysis.
Command Center. The command center team activates the facility to be used for assembly of the emergency management team, help desk team, administration team, and the business recovery coordinators when a disaster has occurred. They are also responsible for the initial distribution of supplies, forms, and off-site boxes stored at the warehouse. This team is made up of warehouse and facilities personnel.

Damage Assessment. This recovery team assesses the damage of the disabled facility and its contents, both preliminary (immediately after an event) and comprehensive assessments. Activities are coordinated with the business recovery coordinator, IS recovery coordinator, emergency management, and facility preparation team. Members of this team include General Services Commission (GSC) building engineers, data services and risk management personnel, and any related vendors or technical experts.

Hazmat teams are allowed in facilities first when hazardous materials are involved. Damage assessment teams must wait until access has been granted to the damaged facility.

Emergency Management. The emergency management team provides overall management to all recovery teams; authorization for disaster declaration; business recovery functions for all operating business units; guidance for all restoration activities; agency funding and expenditure arrangements; and, public relations information.

Emergency Purchasing. This team coordinates the replacement (purchase and/or lease) of all damaged equipment at the disabled facility as well as equipment required for alternate operations. They also coordinate the delivery and installation of such equipment at the alternate facility. This team handles the procurements for all information resources, general office needs, and facilities requirements. The team may also request a suspension of purchasing rules and regulations to facilitate recovery.

Equipment Installation. This team controls the installation of all terminals, PCs, and printers at the alternate site. Personnel for this team are primarily from PC/LAN and telecommunications support areas. This team interfaces with all business units and works directly with the emergency purchasing and facilities preparation teams.

Executive Management. The organization’s (agency’s) executive management communicates support of the business recovery process by issuing a formal policy statement; periodically reviewing the recovery assumptions, potential loss assumptions, strategic considerations, and definitions of resumption priorities. Executive management ensures that adequate resources are devoted to the project by approving recovery strategies, possible alternatives, funding, and ongoing maintenance.

Facilities Preparation. The facilities preparation team coordinates and directs all activities necessary to restore, build, and/or lease a replacement building. The team reviews business unit requests for office space; provides alternate site facilities to continue critical business functions; and, participates in damage assessment to the affected facility.

Finance. The finance group oversees proper authorization and support of expenses during emergency procurement.

Information Services. The IS team maps the recovery of the information resources (mainframe computer and associated services, telecommunications and connectivity, LANs, WANs, and PCs) for business function recovery at an alternate site. The organization may have a central computing center and/or distributed systems which would dictate the size, complexity, and areas of responsibility of the teams.

The basic responsibilities include the following:

Applications—restores and supports application systems at the recovery center and defines data files retention periods for off-site storage.

Data Base Administration—restores all critical data bases and evaluates their integrity; closely coordinates file synchronization and balancing conditions with the applications team prior to resuming production processing.

Data Security—maintains data security of the electronic records and files throughout the recovery operations. Data security entails system access via passwords. The team is functional throughout the entire recovery effort.

IS Recovery Coordinator—coordinates all activities of the recovery teams for the agency’s central computing center and works closely with the business recovery coordinator and the other teams. Depending on the size of the organization, this function may also be the business recovery coordinator.

Help Desk—processes all end-user inquiries and requests concerning the recovered computer systems during the recovery effort.

Mainframe Distribution—controls all printed output. Output created by outside vendors is controlled by this team. This team interfaces with all business recovery teams and the operations team.

Network—restores both voice and data critical circuits and maintains a backup telecommunications network. The team interfaces closely with business recovery, systems software, operations, and facility preparation teams.

Operations—supports restoration of the mainframe utilities, critical applications and databases, I/O controls, and schedules all production applications. Most team members are staff from central computer operations.

Off-site Storage—retrieves all required electronic media from the off-site storage location and transports it to the recovery center. Reestablishes or maintains an alternate off-site storage location for rotation of electronic vital records throughout the recovery effort.

System Software—restores the operating system and all subsystems at the alternate recovery center. The team also prepares the operating system configuration to be used in the alternate site and restored primary home site.

Legal. The legal team ensures that legal issues or procedures related to potential agency liabilities are addressed in the plan.

Physical Security. This recovery team provides physical security for all personnel, the buildings, and all alternate sites.

Public Relations. The public relations team provides accurate, essential, and timely information to employees, employees’ families, the media, and customers about what has happened and how the recovery plan is working. This team ensures the appropriate spokesperson addresses environmental, health, and safety issue