Begin with business activities
Identify the work that would be hardest to pause: customer service, operations, finance or access to essential records. Map the systems and information each activity depends on. Recovery priorities should come from that business impact, rather than from whichever system is easiest to restore first.
Know what is actually backed up
List the systems, data locations and cloud services in use. Confirm what is included, what is excluded and who manages each backup. Consider configuration and access information as well as documents. Do not assume a cloud service’s availability or retention features are a complete substitute for your recovery requirements.
Agree the recovery objectives
Discuss how much disruption and data loss the business could tolerate for different activities. These expectations help shape backup frequency, retention and recovery arrangements. They are planning inputs, not guarantees: the design and tests must show whether the arrangements are suitable.
Protect the recovery route
Consider how backup administration is secured, who has access and whether a compromised business account could also affect the copies needed for recovery. Keep recovery instructions and supplier contacts available through an appropriate route if the usual systems cannot be reached. Access needs to be controlled as well as usable.
Define people and decisions
Name the roles responsible for declaring an incident, approving recovery work, communicating with staff and coordinating suppliers. Include a process for updating contact information. A clear decision path helps prevent several people making conflicting changes during a difficult situation.
Test and maintain the plan
A successful backup job is not the same as a usable restore. Agree practical restore checks and exercises appropriate to the systems involved. Record what was tested, any limitations and the improvements identified. Review the plan when applications, suppliers or business priorities change.
Bring continuity into the discussion
Recovery is technical; continuity also covers how people keep essential work moving while systems are unavailable. Consider alternative working arrangements and communication routes. Start with an initial conversation, then agree a separate scope for any technical review or implementation.