Desk reviews catch missing annexes and outdated phone numbers. They rarely show whether the operations director and the plant manager will disagree about shutting a line, or whether customer communications stall while legal reviews a draft message.
A tabletop exercise places those frictions in the open. Participants receive a scenario — flood access to a Ladprao warehouse, a key moulding supplier offline, a sudden utility outage — and must decide in sequence. Facilitators note who speaks, who waits, and which decision has no named owner.
Mid-sized firms often discover that continuity folders assign roles that no longer match the org chart, or that alternate suppliers exist only as informal knowledge held by one buyer. Those findings cost far less to correct after a half-day rehearsal than after a real interruption.
Keep the group small enough that every participant must speak. Eight to sixteen people usually works. Larger rooms turn into audiences, and audiences do not reveal decision gaps.
After the exercise, circulate a short observation memo within a week. List friction points, not blame. Then schedule the two or three plan edits that would have changed the outcome of the scenario.