Your Tabletop Exercise Proved You Can Talk. It Did Not Prove You Can Recover.
Commvault, Thursday, May 7th, 2026
Tabletop exercises often validate competence rather than expose real incident response gaps and recovery capabilities.
This article critiques how most organizations conduct tabletop exercises, arguing they are designed to demonstrate competence rather than discover weaknesses. The author emphasizes that effective exercises must introduce real-world friction, incomplete information, and pressure while involving cross-functional teams beyond just security and IT.
True resilience requires moving beyond discussion-based scenarios to actual recovery testing that validates whether systems can be restored cleanly and quickly. Success should be measured by identifying concrete problems with clear owners and remediation deadlines, not by how well teams perform under ideal conditions.