Why Run Exercises#

Runbooks that have never been tested are fiction. Failover procedures that have never been executed are hopes. Game days and tabletop exercises convert assumptions about system resilience into verified facts – or reveal that those assumptions were wrong before a real incident does.

The value is not just finding technical gaps. Exercises expose process gaps: unclear escalation paths, missing permissions, outdated contact lists, communication breakdowns between teams. These are invisible until a simulated failure forces people to actually follow the documented procedure.