Good procedures are easy to use, including charts illustrating the steps and easy to follow instructions. In an emergency ease of use is paramount. Information sheets provide background information needed by a variety of disaster recovery personnel and teams. For example, the list of Disaster Declaration authorities, along with their work and home phone numbers is in a fact sheet that is distributed to disaster recovery personnel. Lists of disaster recovery team personnel and their contact numbers are also documented in information sheets along with the phone numbers and locations of command centers and other backup operating locations.
Phone trees are another example.
When bundled together in a small book for a particular team member, these action plans and information sheets contain all that this team member needs to know to perform the recovery function. However, this framework of procedures means that very many procedures and information sheets will be written. The Disaster Recovery Plan or Business Resumption Plan is already a complicated set of documents. Keep the procedures as simple as possible and avoid burdening people with unneeded information. One good tool for accomplishing this goal is to modularize the plan.