Whose responsibility for what in a disaster scenario can become blurred in a stressful situation. Responsibility lies with the IT admins up to the IT Director and CEO.

1. WHO IS
RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT
IN AN IT DISASTER ?

2. If you’ve been through a disaster,
you know. It’s the worst day in an IT
professional’s career. There are huge
demands on the team coordinating
the recovery.
Who is responsible for what?
IT
Admin team
IT
Manager
Department
Heads
IT
Director /CIO
CEO

3. 1
IT Admin Team
Critical internal
communicator
IT Admins play a significant
role in the execution of the DR
plan.
Their job is to carry out the
instructions in the DR runbooks
and they are responsible for
passing accurate information
up the chain of command.

4. IT Manager
On the ground
figurehead
IT Managers are the lynchpin
of disaster events. They must
co-ordinate internal teams and
external service providers,
allocating resource to diagnostic
and recovery work.
They must understand the
technology dependencies
across all departments and
business functions.
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5. Department Heads
Business unit
champion
Individual department heads
are responsible for ensuring
their teams and the systems
they use are accurately
represented in a crisis. They
are the conduit from the Crisis
Management Team to their
department.
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6. IT Director /CIO
Business and IT
Ambassador
The most senior IT staff are IT’s
representative to the Board. They
need to communicate accurate
information about what systems
and services are affected and what
the impact is on the business.
Their role is also to make the most
difficult decisions. Should you
invoke DR? Do you need to take-
down systems to limit the spread
of a cyber attack?
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7. CEO
The face of the
organisation
The CEO is ultimately
responsible for the survivability
of the business and protecting
its reputation.
They are also the figurehead
and public-face of the organi-
sation throughout the crisis.
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