Choose a realistic and bounded recovery exercise

What this means for your practice

Choose a bounded scenario based on a meaningful dependency failure and agreed objectives. Use an authorised exercise plan that avoids disrupting real services.

How to review the arrangement

Ask the supplier to define the failure, participants and observable recovery objectives before the exercise. Which assumptions are being tested? Record where the plan relies on something unavailable in that scenario. Success includes discovering those dependencies early enough to improve the plan.

Choose the obstacle the exercise is intended to reveal

Start with a service dependency whose failure would make recovery meaningfully difficult. Explain the assumed problem, which services are affected and which resources participants can use. Agree clear boundaries and authorisation so the exercise does not accidentally disrupt real work. Give the team observable objectives, such as finding the right instructions or restoring a representative task in a test setting, rather than a vague aim to practise recovery.

Include one realistic obstacle, such as an unavailable administrator, instead of making every part of the scenario fail at once. Ask participants to record where the plan relies on something the scenario has removed. Those discoveries are useful evidence, even when an objective is not achieved. Separate uncertainty in the plan from technical failure and assign the appropriate follow-up owner. A focused exercise makes it easier to verify improvements afterwards because the team knows exactly which weakness it set out to examine.

How to check the result

Measure objectives achieved and previously unknown recovery dependencies.