A good contingency plan must be based on a clear policy that defines the organization's contingency objectives and establishes the employees responsible for contingency planning. All the senior employees must support the contingency program. They should, therefore, be included in developing a site-wide, agreed-upon contingency planning policy that outlines the roles and responsibilities of contingency planning. The policy they come up with must contain the following key elements:

• The scope that the contingency plan will cover
• The resources required
• The training needs of the organizational users
• Testing, exercising, and maintenance schedules
• Backup schedules and their storage locations
• The definitions of the roles and responsibilities of the people that are part of the contingency plan