War-game a litigation hold drill by proving each custodian class has a named owner, a measured release window, and a reverse path before the drill starts governing every preservation claim.
Litigation hold drills fail when "on hold" means a status without a decision artifact, when teams dual-count a draft release as both approved and live, and when high-risk custodian paths still pin to one thin Legal roster because the map is incomplete. The review needs one written inventory of custodian classes, one owner who can deny a risky shortcut, and a documented consequence when a failed release ages past the deadline.
What must be on the desk
Bring the litigation hold tools in use, custodian map, last hold incidents, open preservation tickets, and one case where a delayed release hurt a discovery narrative. State the decision: clear the hold drill, revise specific controls, or hold until a freeze owner is named. Include which product or engineering systems still bypass the same review.
List custodian classes by system, release window, owner roster, last skip reason, and evidence required to keep the hold. Attach overdue releases and any emergency waiver in the last quarter. Name which classes are out of scope and why.
Pressure questions
- Which critical custodian class still lacks a tested collection path with a measured age-out?
- What must hold before a release can promote into a lasting rule, and who can waive it without a written reason?
- How does a declined release become visible to the requester within the claimed window?
- What is the measured time from a failed hold finding to a human with freeze authority?
- Which shared override can ship many releases without failing a single hold health check?
- Who has authority to pause releases or force a hold rollback at week end without waiting for the system owner?
Run the package in Pingpong with legal, IT, security, and people seats. Require observed, inferred, or unknown labels. Observed claims need a source. Unknowns become owners and due dates. When two teams claim the same hold authority, force one named decision before the next custodian change starts.
Replay one prior litigation hold under the proposed rules. If the incident would still age without a reverse owner, revise the rules before calling the drill ready.
Pair with the legal ops lead seat, a contract playbook rewrite, an NDA template cut, and an access review cadence. More operating decisions live in the war-game decisions hub.
Close only when approved and blocked labels can be reproduced from stored exports without a verbal override.