A controls walkthrough is only as useful as the room you put in front of the auditor. Too often the compliance lead arrives alone while the people who actually reverse payments or clear alerts stay on the floor.
Invite the process owner who can narrate a real exception from last month. Bring the policy version that was in force during the sample period, not the draft sitting in legal review. Print or screen-share the reconciliation pack with cut-off times visible.
If your outsourcing partner runs a slice of customer support, decide in advance whether they join the session or whether you speak for them with minutes and SLAs in hand. Ambiguity here wastes half a day.
Finally, agree what “out of scope” means before anyone opens a laptop. Product roadmaps and fundraising slides rarely help a controls discussion — leave them out unless they change who owns a control.