1. Continuity of Operations Planning Introduction & Practical Application – PART TWO
Kelly Keenan, MPH
May 14, 2015

2. Overview
What is COOP?
10 Essential Elements
Practical Application

3. What is COOP?

4. What is COOP?
How an organization continues its essential functions during a disruptive incident.

5. Who is Responsible for COOP?
Federal Government COOP
Presidential Directive  Secretary of Homeland Security  FEMA
State, Local and Private COOP
According to FEMA, responsibility for continuity planning resides with the highest level of management of the organization involved.

6. Why Do COOP? FEMA asked nicely
Emergencies disrupt normal operations, not demand
Community Benefit
Provide an essential function to the community
Financial
Lost revenue + extra expenses = reduced profits
Customers defect to competition
Ethical/Legal
Should not abandon patients/clients/community
Cannot abandon patients/clients/community

7. 10 Essential Elements

8. 10 Essential Elements or Continuity of Operations Capabilities
Essential Functions 
Orders of Succession 
Delegations of Authority 
Continuity Facilities 
Continuity Communications 
Essential Records Management 
Human Resources 
Devolution of Control and Direction
Reconstitution 
Tests, Training, and Exercises 

9. Practical Application
Essential Functions
Identify
Understand

10. Planning: Identify Essential Functions
Step 1: Identify All Organizational Functions.
Step 2: Identify Which Functions Are Potentially Essential.
Step 3: Develop Mission Essential Function Data Sheets.
Step 4: Prioritize the Mission Essential Functions.
Step 5: Obtain Leadership Approval.
Step 1: Identify Organizational Functions.
To assist in accomplishing Step 1, useful resources may include the following: 1. Statutes, laws, executive orders, or directives that charge the organization with responsibility to perform missions; 2. Mission statements that describe the overarching mission(s) or list the services provided by the organization; 3. The organization’s strategic plan; 4. Published organization literature; and/or 5. Interviews with organization leadership and external partners.
Examples of organization function descriptions are listed below: 1. Provide training to outside organizations; 2. Maintain and ensure operational capability of computer systems; 3. Provide Equal Employment Opportunity services; 4. Develop organization budget for the next fiscal year.

11. Planning: Understand Essential Functions
Understanding the Essential Functions:
Identify leadership needs
Identify staff needs
Identify community & IT needs
Identify facility needs
Identify additional resource needs
Identify associate agency support needs
*Essential Functions = Mission Essential Functions & Essential Support Activities

12. Practical Application
Orders of Succession

13. Orders of Succession
Orders of succession outline who can, and should, assume leadership roles of the organization in the event an organization’s leadership becomes debilitated or incapable of performing its roles.

14. Practical Application
Delegations of Authority

15. Delegation of Authority
Ensure the orderly and predefined transition of leadership responsibilities within an organization during a COOP activation and are closely tied to succession.
Succession = who
Delegation of Authority = how

16. Practical Application
Continuity Facilities

17. Continuity Facilities
Continuity Facilities includes other facilities and locations, and work arrangements such as telework and mobile work concepts.
Allows the organization to relocate during an incident that impact their primary facility.
Includes:
Alternate Sites
Telework Options

18. Practical Application
Human Resources

19. Human Resources
Staff is vital to the continuity capability of all organizations.
Incorporate exist organizations policies and procedures into COOP:
Communication, including initial alert and operations status
Procedures for contacting and accounting for all staff
HR Issues like pay, leave, work scheduling, benefits, telework, hiring, authorities, and flexibilities
Procedures for assisting staff (e.g. disaster survivors)
Training
Personal Preparedness
All staff have to either be essential or non-essential, based on:
Essential function’s staffing requirements
Leadership requirements

20. Human Resources Essential Staff Plan should address:
Staff members that are needed to complete the essential functions must be considered essential staff.
Plan should address:
Pre-identify staff (by title) and training procedures
Expectations, roles and responsibilities
Cite existing organizational policies and procedures
Contact information for essential staff
Organizational policies and procedures support afterhours and overtime work
Consider union and bargaining issues

21. Human Resources Non-Essential Staff Can be:
Staff members that are not needed to complete the essential functions must be considered non-essential staff.
Can be:
Reassigned to participate in other response activities
E.g. ICS, Reconstitution Team
Continue to complete their normal tasks
Furloughed

22. Practical Application
Essential Records Management

23. Essential Records Management
Identify, protect, make availably essential records
“Essential records” support the continued performance of essential functions during an incident. Includes:
Information systems technology
Applications
Infrastructure
Electronic and hardcopy documents
References and records

24. Essential Records Management
Essential records fall into two categories:
Emergency Operating Records
E.g. Emergency plans and directives, orders of succession, delegations of authority, staffing assignments, and related policy or procedural records.
Rights and Interests Records
E.g. Accounts receivable files, contracting and acquisition files, official personnel records, Social Security, payroll, retirement, and insurance records, property management, inventory records

25. Essential Records Management
Plan should address:
Complete inventory of essential records. Includes records that:
Specify how an organization will operate in an emergency or disaster
Necessary to the organization’s continuing essential functions and resumption of normal operations
Needed to protect the legal and financial rights of the organization and the public
Essential records and database risk assessment
Identify the risks involved if essential records are retained in their current locations and media, and the difficulty of reconstituting the records if destroyed
Essential records plan packet

26. Practical Application
Continuity Communications

27. Continuity Communications
An organization’s ability to execute its essential functions depend upon the availability of effective communications systems.
Communication necessary for the essential functions
Communication necessary for senior leadership to
Collaborate
Develop policy and recommendations
Act under all-hazards conditions
The COOP plan should address all of your communication needs, and how those needs will be meet and sustained during COOP activation.

28. Continuity Communications
Type of Communication
Internal Communication
External Communication, Associates
External Communication, Public
External Communication, Other
Method of Communication
Land Line, Cell Phone, Text Message, Fax
, Computer, Network access, Internet
EMSystem, CO-SHARE, WebEOC, CEDRS, Health Alert Network
800 MHz Radio, Satellite Phones, HAM/Amateur Radio Operators (ARES)
Secure Communication
Data Management Needs

29. Practical Application
Devolution of Control and Direction

30. Devolution of Control and Direction
Devolution planning supports overall continuity planning and addresses events that render an organization’s leadership and essential function staff unavailable or incapable of performing its essential functions from either the organization’s primary operating facility or alternate sites.
Devolution is a continuity of planning element that may not be appropriate for every agency.
Transferring operations:
Different location within an organization
Different individuals within an organization
An outside organization

31. Devolution of Control and Direction
The Devolution section of the COOP plan should address the following elements:
Identify which essential functions the agency would transfer
Resources needed transfer to the devolution site
Resources needed perform at the devolution site
Activation protocols (triggers)
How, and when, operations will transfer
Points-of-contact (POCs) at the devolution site(s)
POCs with responsibility for personnel who will perform the essential functions
Acquire resources necessary to continue and sustain operations
Restore or reconstitute organization authorities

32. Practical Application
Reconstitution

33. Reconstitution
Reconstitution addresses how the organization will return to normal operations once leadership determines that the actual emergency, or the threat of an emergency, is over. Process of reconstitution begins at the start of a continuity event. COOP should include a reconstitution team to help the organization resume normal operations as quickly as possible.

34. Practical Application
Tests, Training, and Exercises

35. Tests, Training, and Exercises
Testing, training and conducting exercises is necessary to assist organizations to prepare and validate their continuity capabilities and program and ability to perform essential functions during any emergency. Once completing the COOP plan, COOP should be built into your larger Training and Exercise Plan.

36. Questions?