Coop Plan Development

COOP PLAN DEVELOPMENT

Instructions

Table of Contents

Beginning the COOP Process

I.COOP Plan Development Team

I.a. COOP Plan Development Team

II. Essential Services

II.a. Essential Service or Function

II.b. Essential Services: Personnel

II.c. Essential Services: Resources

III.Vital Files, Records and Databases

III.a Vital Files, Records and Databases

IV. Alternate Site

IV.a. Alternate Site(s)

V. Letter of Agreement

VI. Interoperable Communications

VI.a. Interoperable Communications

Cover Page

Section 1: General Overview of the COOP Plan

1.A.Introduction to Continuity of Operations Planning

1.A.1.COOP and Occupant Emergency Plans

1.A.2.Authorities and References

5-A. Letter of Instruction

1.A.3. COOP Implementation

1.B. Introduction to Your Department

5-B. Organization Chart

1.C. Purpose

1.D. Objectives

1.E. Policy

1.F. Applicability and Scope

1.G. Assumptions

1.H. Authority of the COOP Plan

1.I. Program Management Plan and Multi-Year Strategy

1.I.1. Testing, Training and Exercises

1.I.2. COOP Plan Maintenance

1.I.3. Multi-Year Strategy

1.J. Storage and Access Rights

1.K. Family Emergency Planning

Section 2:Organizational Structure and Leadership

2.A.Organizational Structure

2.A.1.COOP Incident Commander (CIC)

2.A.2.Executive Management Team (EMT)

2.A.3.Incident Response Team (IRT)

2.A.4.COOP Organization Chart

2.B.Leadership

2.B.1.Orders of Succession

2.B.2.Delegations of Authority

2.B.3.Devolution

5.E. Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Devolution Agency

2.C.Personnel

2.C.1.Key Personnel

2.C.2.Assigned Personnel

2.C.3.Unassigned Personnel

Section 3:COOP Implementation Processes

3. Phases of COOP Operations

3.A.Activation Process

3.A.Activation Process Checklist

3.B.Alert and Notification Process

3.B.Alert and Notification Process Checklist

3.B.1.Log of Contacts Made

5.C.Department Contact List

5.D.COOP Directory

3.C.Devolution Process

3.C.Devolution Process Checklist

5-E.Memorandum of Understanding

3.D.COOP Operations

3.D.1.COOP Incident Commander (CIC) Responsibilities

3.D.2.Team Lead Responsibilities

3.D.3.New Arrivals’ Responsibilities

3.D.4.Staff Orientation

3.D.5.Personnel Coordination

3.D.6.Employee Update Procedures

3.D.7.Media Statement Policy

3.E.Departure and Relocation Process

3.E.1.Departure and Relocation Process

3.E.2.Alternate Site Set-Up

3.E.3.Alternate Site Floor Plans

3.F.Deactivation and Reconstitution Process

3.F.1.Deactivation Process

3.F.1. Deactivation Process Checklist

3.F.2.Reconstitution Process

3.F.3.After-Action Report

Section 4:Service Recovery Procedures

4.A.Essential Service Priority List

Tier 1.“Must Haves”

Tier 2.Very Important

Tier 3.Can be Deferred

4.B.Recovery Procedures for Essential Services

Step 1.Review the list of essential services

Step 2.Fill out the recovery plan checklist as completely as possible

Step 3.Determine if you need a contingency plan

Step 4.Determine dependencies

Step 5.Review recovery time objective (RTO) for the service

Step 6.List the tasks on the checklist for the service

Step 7.Identify Resources

Section 5:Annexes

5.A:Letter of Instruction

5.B:Department Organization Chart

5.C:Department Contact List

5.D:COOP Directory

5.E:Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)

5.F:Letter of Agreement

5.G.Campus Communication Process

5.H.Acronyms

5.IGlossary

5.J.COOP Plan Approval

Finalizing Your COOP Plan

VIII.Review and Revise your COOP Plan

IX.Other Emergency Plans

X.COOP Plan Implementation

Beginning the COOP Process

COOP Plan Development Team

The COOP team is the group that will be writing your COOP plan. Your team should have representation from those areas that are essential to providing and/or supporting your department’s critical services. Having a back-up for each team member will provide continuity when a member is absent.

The Importance of Teams

Ensuring continuity of operations is too big a job for one person, so it's important to build an effective team.

Creating teams ensures wider participation in the COOP project. The project then draws from several levels of varied expertise, inspires greater interest, and gains more widespread support. Teams also provide redundancy so that no one individual, when unavailable, becomes a single point of failure. A long term benefit of theteam approach is that itensures knowledgeable personnel are available to do assigned critical tasks.

Personnel should be selected for the COOP Development Team for:

Their knowledge of overall department operations
Their expertise in specific critical services
Their expertise in specific advisory areas (e.g., IT, legal, HR)

Role for All Department Personnel

Every member of your department has a role in planning for continuity of operations. They can participate by:

Sharing their expertise as active members of, or advisers to, the COOP planning team
Developing procedures
Providing input on the execution of critical services
Assisting in identifying and backing up vital records
Providing contact information
Reviewing policies, procedures, or parts of the plan itself to provide input on sufficiency and workability
Familiarizing themselves with the COOP plan and their roles in it
Becoming familiar with the department’s emergency plans
Participating in COOP tests, training, exercises, and after-action reporting sessions
Ensuring that their families are prepared for emergencies

This chart will not be part of your final COOP plan unless you choose to include it.

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I.a.COOP Plan Development Team

Name / Task or Area of Expertise / Work # / Other # / Email
Joe Smith / COOP Coordinator
Mary Jones / IT
Jim Miller / Facilities
Sue Newton / Research

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II. Essential Services

Identifying essential services is one of the most critical parts of COOP planning. The plan is written so that these services can be continued, no matter what event happened that has reduced your ability to provide all the services you do under normal circumstances.

Essential services should be determined early in the COOP process because they drive other decisions you will have to make (alternate facility, key personnel, etc.)

What is an Essential Service?

Federal Preparedness Circular 65 (FPC-65) defines essential service as those functions that enable an organization to:

Provide vital services
Exercise civil authority
Maintain the safety of the general public
Sustain the industrial or economic base during an emergency.

In other words, essential services are those services that must continue with no or minimal disruption.

How Do You Identify Essential Service?

To have a successful COOP plan, a department must determine what its essential services are by considering its customers and their needs. Assigning a priority to customer needs helps to distinguish between essential and nonessential needs—and thus, the department's essential and nonessential services. Departments must be able to continue essential services within 12 hours and be capable of sustaining essential services for up to 14 days.

When identifying essential services, consider:

Services that must be continued in all circumstances
Those services that cannot suffer an interruption for more than 12 hours

Drivers of Essential Services

The continuity of essential services will be driven by the availability of:

Trained personnel (human capital)
Vital records and databases
Supplies
Equipment and systems

Keep these "drivers" in mind when developing recovery timelines for essential services.

Recovery Time Objective (RTO)

Time is the crucial factor. RTO is the period of time within which systems, applications, or services must be recovered after an outage. Remember that the recovery time objective is the deadline that predefined, essential systems, applications, services, or operations must be available to customers and users to prevent severe or permanent damage to the mission and business of your department.

The emergency response time, decision time, and the time to get to a recovery facility to load systems and data all count when you measure the time required to recover within your recovery time objective limit.

Documents to Help Identify Essential Services

2.A. – Recovery Strategy Questionnaire (State of Wisconsin)
2.B. – Identify Dependencies (State of Wisconsin)
2.B.1. – Dependency Matrix (State of Wisconsin)
2.B.2. – Resource List (State of Wisconsin)
2.C. – Decision Tree
2.D. – Academic Functions Decision Chart (UC-Berkeley)

Use the documents to help you determine your essential services. They are optional. Use any of them, or just parts of any of them, that will aid you in this process.

Fill in the following table with your essential services. The table will not be part of your final COOP plan.

Instructions for filling out II.a – Essential Services:

1)List department/unit’s essential services and functions.

2)Assign a Recovery Time Objective (RTO). Use “Other” column if there are specific times (e.g. daily, 7 am and 7 pm) or deadlines (e.g. first and third Friday of month by 4 p.m.; last day of quarter) that must be met.

3)Is the service so critical that it must be continued in all circumstances? If your department cannot continue providing the service, should it be turned over (devolved) to another department or agency until your department is again able to provide the service?

4)Staff: what is the minimum number of staff required to continue the service or function? How many staff have been trained for the service?

Use this information to help you determine which of the services and functions that you have listed are essential to your department. In Section 4, you will write recovery plans for the essential services identified in this list.

The information in the following charts will be used to write your recovery plans (Section 4). They will not be in the final document unless you choose to include any or all of them.

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II.a.Essential Service or Function

Department/Unit: ______

Form Completed by: ______Date: ______

1) Services and Functions / 2) RTO / 3) Devolve
Y/N / 4) Staff
24
hrs / 3-5
days / 15
days / 30
days / > 30
days / Other / Min. #
required / # trained

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II.b and II.c: Essential Service Detail

Fill out a form for each service.

II.b – List essential personnel – personnel necessary for maintaining or providing this function. Designate one person as the primary and include at least one backup staff person. The backup person may be from another department.

Name
Title
Role in this function.

II.c. – List the resources needed to continue the service

Utilities: electrical power, HVAC, water
Communications: phone (land) line, cell phone, radio, network connection, etc.
Office equipment: computer, printer, fax, copier
Software
Supplies
Vehicle
Other

These forms are not part of your final COOP plan. You may find that you will need to add or change information as you go through this process.

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II.b.Essential Services: Personnel

Department/Unit: ______

Form Completed by: ______Date: ______

Essential Service: ______

Name / Title / Role
Primary
Backup
Additional

II.c.Essential Services: Resources

Company / Contact Name / Phone Number / Email / Service/Product

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Vital Files, Records and Databases

In this step you will create a list of the files, records and databases that are vital to your organization and/or are critical to the performance of essential services. These are documents that are necessary to continue or restore the department’s critical services, and/or are necessary to resume normal business operations.

Vital Files, Records and Databases

“Vital records” are information items are considered to be essential to the operation of your department. Vital files, records and databases are electronic and hardcopy documents, references, and records needed to support critical functions during a COOP situation. An effective vital records program should account for the identification, protection, and ready availability of vital records, databases, and hardcopy documents needed to support essential functions under a full spectrum of emergencies. Vital records must be accessible within 12 hours of COOP activation. For those organizations whose missions cannot be interrupted for any period of time, vital records must always be readily available.

There are two types of records:

Static records may change little or not at all. (i.e. policies or directives)

Active records change constantly with circumstances or completed work. (i.e. COOP call down roster)

Both types of vital records are essential and should be preserved so that operations can be maintained or quickly resumed following an interruption. In addition to these categories of records, COOP personnel also may require other materials and resources. If so, these other materials and resources should be considered “vital” for COOP.

Most agencies choose to maintain records electronically because of the ease of updating the records and copying them at an offsite location. The methods of preserving vital records should be defined in the records management policy and in the COOP plan.

To the extent possible, you should provide for off-site storage of duplicate records, off-site back-up of electronic records and databases, and pre-positioning of vital records and databases at the alternate site. Safekeeping and pre-positioning systems and data are critical to alternate operations. Also, this information should be available and up-to-date at the devolution site (step 3.08). A maintenance program to assure that records are current should be instituted.

Categories of Vital Records:

Emergency operating documents

Plans and directives
Orders of succession
Delegations of authority
Staffing assignments
Crisis response plan
Occupant emergency plans
State of Wisconsin emergency response plan
Policy and procedure manuals
Owner’s manuals
List of staff and contact information
Any records necessary for continuing essential operations

Legal and financial records

Personnel records
Social Security records
Payroll records
Retirement records
Insurance records
Contract records

Also include in the list other necessary items for operations, such as keys to file cabinets or department vehicles.

Instructions for filling out form:

1)List the essential service or function

2)List the document.

3)Show form in which document exists (paper, electronic, microfilm, etc.). If a vital record exists in two or more forms, list each one separately.

4)List location for each document. Some documents are kept in several locations.

5)Show how document is backed up.

This document will become Annex 5-G.

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III.aVital Files, Records and Databases

Department/Unit: ______

Form Completed by: ______Date: ______

1: Essential Service or Function / 2: Vital File, Record or Database / 3: Format / 4: Storage
Locations / 5: Back-up
Method
Department operations / Department Policy and Procedure Manual / Paper /

Director’s Office
HR
College Dean
File cabinet, room 228

Department operations / Department Policy and Procedure Manual / Electronic /

Shared drive
Intranet

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IV. Alternate Site

Phase 2, Alternate Operating Facility Operations, covers the period from 12 hours after activation up to 14 days. During Phase 2, departments may need to conduct essential services from the alternate facility.

It is assumed that in most cases when COOP activation is required, a department’s primary operating facility is unavailable and essential functions must be relocated. Therefore, all departments must:

Identify an alternate location that can be used by essential personnel to carry out critical functions in a COOP situation.
Identify business continuity-or devolution sites in case the alternate facility is made inoperable (see step 3.C, Devolution Process).

Selecting the right alternate facility and preparing it to conduct and support COOP operations is critical to COOP planning. The COOP plan should include two alternate sites. These sites may be identified from existing infrastructures or from external sources. The alternate sites should have sufficient space and equipment to accommodate the relocation of critical personnel and be capable of sustaining operations for up to two weeks (with resource acquisition). Consider cooperative agreements, sharing with other departments and virtual office technologies.

Prioritizing essential functions during the planning process is critical during initial operations to ensure that the highest-priority functions are activated first. Lower-priority essential functions are then brought online as soon as possible.

Selecting an Alternate Facility

Alternate facility selection should be based on an analysis of a combination of factors, which should be prioritized based on your department’s requirements.

Desirable Characteristics of an Alternate Facility

Alternate facilities should:

Be located at a safe distance from and secured against worst case and most likely scenarios
Be operational in 12 hours or less
Be capable of supporting operations for up to 14 days
Provide sufficient space, equipment, supplies, and services to support COOP personnel in the performance of critical functions
Support required interoperable communications and IT infrastructures until normal operations can be resumed (step 3.07, Interoperable Communications)
Provide for food, lodging, health, sanitation, and security needs of COOP personnel on the site or nearby

The alternate site should have reliable logistical support, services and infrastructure systems (water, electrical power, HVAC, etc.) Consideration for the health, safety, and emotional well-being of the COOP team should be used when selecting the site. In addition, the selection process should include deliberations on the appropriate physical security and personnel access control measures.

Consider pre-positioning minimum essential equipment at the alternate site. In addition, coordinate with the alternate site manager to develop support procedures to ensure that the alternate site is able to both accept the COOP team and capable of supporting COOP operations for up to two weeks.

Key Issues and Questions

1.Does the facility provide a risk-free environment that reduces the chance that the site will be affected by the same event that required COOP activation? Is the facility constructed so that it is relatively safe from the high-risk hazards in the area?

Select a site that provides a risk-free environment, if possible, and is geographically dispersed from the primary work location. This will reduce the chance that the site will be affected by the same event that required COOP activation.

2.Does the facility have enough space to house the personnel, equipment, and systems required to support all of the department’s critical functions?

Chose a facility that provides the space for assigned personnel, supplies and equipment, and furniture (desks, chairs, work tables, etc.). It should support your electrical, phone and IT requirements.

3.Is housing available at or near the facility? Is public transportation available to the facility?

Sites that are accessible by public transportation and that provide housing or are near hotels offer important advantages.

4.Will the facility support the department’s COOP information technology and communication requirements?