Much of business continuity today can be automated. Production lines, supplies reordering, failovers in case of problems, management reports, many of these things now work on a “set it and forget it” basis.

Other items still need manual intervention. A turbine making strange noises, accounts that don’t tally, a delivery truck breakdown, somebody may have to figure out the problem from scratch. Between the two lies a third approach, that of the runbook (also known as “playbook” or “cookbook”), a set of instructions on what to do in case a common or predictable problem occurs.

If you can automate cost-effectively, then automation is probably the way to go. With so much of business being driven by IT, the opportunities for automation are numerous.

On the other hand, if it takes too much effort to automate or if the problem is a corner case with a lower probability of happening, then writing a business continuity runbook may be more appropriate.

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http://www.opscentre.com/the-business-continuity-runbook-between-automated-and-manual-bc/