IT Governance Maturity and Disaster Recovery Exercise Quality: A Multi-Organisation Observational Study
Abstract
Organisations vary widely in how they plan, execute, document, and learn from disaster recovery exercises. We examined the association between IT governance maturity and exercise quality in a multi-organisation observational study of 41 organisations and 123 documented recovery exercises. Governance maturity was assessed across accountability, risk ownership, change control, evidence management, and executive oversight. Exercise quality was scored independently using predefined criteria for scenario realism, objective measurement, dependency coverage, issue closure, and repeat testing. Higher governance maturity was associated with stronger exercise quality after adjustment for organisation size, industry, and recovery budget. The largest differences were observed in issue closure and evidence retention rather than raw recovery speed. Mature organisations were also more likely to retest previously failed controls within 90 days and to involve business owners in scenario design. Investment level alone did not explain exercise quality once governance variables were included. These findings suggest that effective disaster recovery testing depends not only on technical capability but also on the governance processes that define ownership, evidence, and follow-through.
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