diff --git a/ci/playbooks/kuttl/run-kuttl-tests.yml b/ci/playbooks/kuttl/run-kuttl-tests.yml
index f2ca594865..b2c9e7cfc7 100644
--- a/ci/playbooks/kuttl/run-kuttl-tests.yml
+++ b/ci/playbooks/kuttl/run-kuttl-tests.yml
@@ -68,7 +68,7 @@
 # name (parsing the KUTTL configuration) may be too cumbersome.
 - name: Find the generated JUnitXML files
   ansible.builtin.find:
-    paths: "{{ cifmw_installyamls_repos }}"
+    paths: "{{ cifmw_installyamls_repos | default(ansible_user_dir ~ '/src/github.com/openstack-k8s-operators/install_yamls') }}"
     file_type: file
     patterns: '*.xml'
   register: "_cifmw_kuttl_xml_files"