CISA Practice Question: Information Systems Operations and Business Resilience
Which of the following is the PRIMARY benefit of conducting a tabletop exercise for disaster recovery?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap is equating 'disaster recovery exercise' with technical validation — candidates pick RTO measurement or system restoration, but a tabletop exercise is discussion-based and its primary value is human coordination, not technical proof.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Improving communication and decision-making among key personnel
A tabletop exercise brings key personnel together to walk through a disaster recovery scenario in a discussion-based setting, with the primary goal of testing and improving communication, coordination, and decision-making. It surfaces gaps in roles, escalation paths, and assumptions without touching production systems. This makes improved communication and decision-making the primary benefit.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Measuring the recovery time objective (RTO)
Why it's wrong here
A tabletop measures decision-making and communication, not elapsed recovery time; RTO is quantified only by executing recovery and timing it. It is tempting because participants do discuss timelines, and a full or parallel recovery test would be the correct choice when the objective is measuring actual RTO.
- ✓
Improving communication and decision-making among key personnel
Why this is correct
A tabletop exercise assembles key personnel to walk through a disaster scenario and their responses. This surfaces gaps in communication, escalation and decision-making without disrupting live systems, which is the primary benefit over full failover testing.
- ✗
Validating the technical recovery procedures
Why it's wrong here
A tabletop exercise is a discussion-based walkthrough; participants talk through roles and decisions rather than executing recovery steps, so it cannot validate technical procedures. It is tempting because procedure review feels like validation, and a full technical recovery test would be the correct choice for confirming those procedures work.
- ✗
Testing the actual restoration of systems
Why it's wrong here
Restoring systems requires executing the actual recovery, which a discussion-based tabletop never performs; no systems are touched. It is tempting because testing restoration is genuinely valuable, and a parallel or full-interruption test would be the correct choice when the objective is verifying that systems can actually be recovered.
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
Courseiva writes every CISA question from scratch — 934 in total, each with an explanation and a wrong-answer breakdown. None are copied from real exams or dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official ISACA exam blueprint
This CISA practice question is part of Courseiva's free ISACA certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the CISA exam.