Pandemic Planning Immediate and Near Term Action Items Project Leadership Associates May 6, 2009 PLA confidential material. May not be copied or distributed.

Pandemic PlanningImmediate and Near Term Action Items

Project Leadership AssociatesMay 6, 2009

PLA confidential material. May not be copied or distributed without consent of PLA.

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Our Organization PLA provides a broad range of business and technology solutions that address

enterprise wide strategy, operations, applications and infrastructure challenges Multiple practice groups with specific subject matter expertise

Infrastructure, Messaging, Unified Communications, Disaster Recovery, Software Development, Business Intelligence, Business Strategy, IT Consulting and Managed Services

Is one of the fastest growing business and technology firms Inc. 5000 – PLA was ranked in the top 41 percent of the fastest private growing

companies for the second consecutive year. Fast Growth 100, CRN Magazine – PLA was ranked #46 in its third year of

being included on the list. Crain's Chicago Business Fast 50 – PLA was ranked #29 on the list of 50

fastest growing companies in Chicago area

Is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois with branch offices in Dallas and Houston Is 75% employee-owned Has over 180 employees Leverages only experienced consultants

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Consultant Warning:  ***DO NOT DO THIS!!!***

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Agenda

Current Situation and Things to Know for Planning Purposes Immediate Action Items Near Term Action Items

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Pandemic Planning is Just Different from Normal BC Planning It is important to understand that a business continuity plan

will NOT necessarily address issues specific to pandemic planning

Concurrent impact in multiple offices Significant employee outage Scale of technical infrastructure required to sustain a multi-

office outage Must be handled at a Firm-wide level

Reality check what your plan does or does not cover then adjust accordingly

Create a plan if you don’t have one

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Current Situation and Things to Know WHO Level 5 Threat

Sustained human to human contact Imminent potential for global pandemic Level 6 means government can shut down all events or businesses

that create a “public gathering” CDC Recommendations

Stay home if you are sick Stay home 7 days after the onset of symptoms (10 days in

children) or at least 24 hours after the last symptom is gone Consider closing schools/day care with one confirmed or suspected

case of swine flu Stay closed for 14 days following the last confirmed case

Containment through isolation Consider how the impact of this approach may impact your daily

operations

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Immediate Action Items Summary Establish a formal Pandemic Planning Team and get

educated Reality check – remote access capabilities Educate office management on remote access

capabilities Define and procure supplies

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Immediate Action Items Establish a formal Pandemic Team if you don’t have a Business

Continuity Team in place Administrative management (Exec Dir, COO) HR Director IT Facilities Marketing or Communications Group Labor/employment lawyer

Role of Team Standardized communications and education Develop/formalize pandemic-related policies Develop and implement action plan Stay 3 steps ahead of everyone else in their understanding of the

flu

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Immediate Action Items Centralized command and control is an absolute must for this type

of planning The bigger the firm, the more likely the response will spin out of control

More people making decisions for individual offices, when this is really a Firm-wide situation and must be handled that way

Centralize crisis management/control for the following Education and communication Problem escalation/decision making

Analyze impact at the office level and how that may change the firm-wide response

Monitoring Firm IT resources along with the Global Team Remote access Laptop pool

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Immediate Action Items Reality Check Technical Remote Access Capabilities

Infrastructure Building servers is not what you want to be doing during any emergency If they are in the budget, procure and deploy them sooner rather than later Bandwidth to handle additional load

Average Citrix user consumes 32 – 50kbps Some types of remote access consume even more bandwidth

Licenses Adding licenses during a disaster can work as long as the infrastructure can

support it Applications

Core applications seem obvious, but what about others that support the practice of law or mitigate business risk?

Litigation/IP docket Conflicts Practice specific applications

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Immediate Action Items – Remote Access Capabilities Data

Again, understand your capabilities for how people will really work remotely

Access to contact information Access to local or server drives for specialized or sensitive data Saved search histories

Basics Survey “work from home” capabilities of lawyers/key staff to create

baseline Firm-provided laptops (do they take them home every night?) Home PC Scanners Printers High speed

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Immediate Action Items – Remote Access Capabilities Business Impact Assessment

Understand RTO/RPO for critical applications in order to build the proper DR capability

Once you understand current capabilities Meet with management to ensure expectations meet the

capabilities

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Immediate Action Items Remote Access Scaling

Generally recommend 65% concurrent usage for the largest office or cluster of offices

During the avian flu scare, Gartner suggested a 40% concurrent outage of all employees in all offices

How do you realistically scale for that? Recommend approximately 35 users/box Citrix Again, don’t forget to address bandwidth

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Immediate Action Items Define and procure supplies

Laptops Security devices Citrix licenses

One time/limited usage license for one year for reduced costs SSL VPN licenses Terminal server licenses

Repurpose for home use Low end printers Scanners Fax machines Air cards Any device that makes working remotely easier

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Immediate Action Items Educate Management/Lawyers on Current Remote Access

Capabilities Tell them the ways in which applications/data can be accessed

remotely Ensure they understand the advantages and disadvantages or

limitations for each way Estimated number of concurrent users

Point at which there would/may be a reduction in performance Application publication

What applications and data are/are not available Don’t embellish current capabilities – this is an opportunity to sell the

Firm on expanding current capabilities Work in collaboration with administration to create a “how to work

remotely” manual to give lawyers/staff Must be business process focused

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Immediate Action Items Understand their true “work from home” capacity and/or comfort

level Level of training and awareness for all lawyers/staff to work from home HR considerations of non-exempt personnel working this way Level of consideration given to workflow, not just data flow

Remember even if lawyers love working from home, during a true disaster it is not business as usual if the office is closed or administrative staff are unavailable Workflow interruptions Communication problems Locating key staff

Interruptions and noise

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Near-term Action Items Talk with your mission critical vendors and suppliers Start developing workflow reallocation plans

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Near-term Action Items An important note about insurance

Business interruption insurance does NOT cover lost billable hours during a pandemic

Guess what that means for you? IT’s ability to enable lawyers to work remotely will be the

single most important factor in a true response to a pandemic

…but no pressure…

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Near-term Action Items Identify mission critical vendors and suppliers

Discuss their pandemic plans with them This is important for business continuity anyway, but even

more important now Collocation/hosting solution vendors in particular

Current economic times have seriously thinned out staffing levels, making pandemic planning even more problematic Start thinking about workflow re-allocation if key internal staff

are unavailable Do this regardless of pandemic planning or not – its just a good

business practice

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Near-term Action Items Address disaster security considerations

Purchase additional fobs, tokens, or other licenses etc Develop processes to enable rapid deployment of the

access devices Consider changing security measures during the initial

stages of any type of emergency situation Talk with HR/management about their plans for allowing

staff to work from home

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Questions?

Pam Hill 217.778.6976 [email protected]

Lee Hovermale 713.446.8422 [email protected]