You don’t have a team to do a risk analysis, or business impact analysis, or recovery option analysis, but you do need a business continuity and disaster recovery plan for a company with a limited budget.

To develop a good BC  DR plan, you have to address all the issues that will affect your business in the event of a business interruption. Here are 5 steps that will help you develop your plan.

1. Define the scope and objectives of your plan. Lay out the groundwork for what your plan must accomplish. Put together a decision-making team that has the authority to define goals, investigate assumptions, set completion times, and allocate resources.

2. Gather information. The purpose of the information gathering phase is to identify risks and impacts, and the best method of gathering information is to interview the company’s employees. There are several methods of conducting interviews one-on-one, or by business units or departments. Groups will never be as good as one-on-one discussions, but may reduce the information-gathering time. The decision-making team may also be a good source of information about how the company operates and what vulnerabilities exist. After the information has been gathered, you will need to identify and analyze options for the business continuity process. The options should be identified by personnel that will be the most affected and who know the area of the business the best. The planners will assist them in identifying and analyzing their options; provide them with guidance; but the employees should draft the continuity requirements of their area of responsibility. Restrict the options to those that come reasonably close to satisfying the recovery time objectives. The decision-making team will use the recovery objectives as criteria to assess options.

» Read more: 5 Steps to Prepare a Disaster Recovery Plan