- Having set up an IT risk management program that successfully mitigates key risks and raises the profile of IT risk in the eyes of the business, you have taken a significant step in your evolution as a strategic and proactive IT leader.
- Unfortunately, your risk assessment is already outdated. Perform regular health checks to stay on top of the key risks threatening the business – and your reputation.
- Our project seizes the momentum you created by building a robust IT risk management program, and creates a process for conducting periodic health checks and embedding ongoing risk management into every aspect of IT.
- Our approach keeps the business on board by stressing the financial impact of IT risks as well as opportunities for calculated risk taking revealed through a deep understanding of how IT-related risk impacts the business.
- Our focus is on using data to make IT risk assessment less like an art and more like a science. Ongoing data-driven risk management is self-improving and grounded in historical data.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- A false sense of security may be your greatest risk. The IT threat landscape is evolving rapidly and won’t wait for you to catch up.
- Risk management should be seen and heard. Communicate the dollar value of risk management to keep the business engaged.
- The first health check is pivotal. Successfully going through the risk management process the second time around is the difference between IT risk management being perceived as a one-off project and an ongoing program.
- Risk management is not checking boxes – you need to be constantly improving. Measuring the effectiveness of your risk management activities is crucial for ensuring that the program lives up to its mandate. It also allows you to communicate a compelling value proposition to senior leadership.
Impact and Result
- To prevent your IT risk management program from becoming an artifact, conduct quarterly, biannual, or annual health checks to reassess your risk portfolio and identify new threats and vulnerabilities.
- Develop and track metrics to measure the success of IT risk management and illustrate the value of the program to senior leadership.
- Create consultant-quality deliverables that inform senior leadership about IT’s risk recommendations, highlighting the potential cost of IT risks and the value created by IT risk projects.
- Get better at identifying and assessing IT risk and measure the improvement.
- Institutionalize the IT risk management program by consistently engaging key stakeholders within and outside of IT.
Member Testimonials
After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real-time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve. See our top member experiences for this blueprint and what our clients have to say.
10.0/10
Overall Impact
$1,239
Average $ Saved
2
Average Days Saved
Client
Experience
Impact
$ Saved
Days Saved
US Department of Defense - Cyber Crime Center - DCISE
Guided Implementation
10/10
$1,239
2
Workshop: Revive Your Risk Management Program With a Regular Health Check
Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
Module 1: Refine IT Risk Management Governance
The Purpose
- To assess the maturity of the risk management program and build an improvement plan.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Perform a program retrospective to jump-start operational improvements and retain the involvement of keep stakeholders.
Activities
Outputs
Review IT risk fundamentals
Set workshop goals and expectations
Assess risk management process, and identify accomplishments and challenges
- An updated Risk Management Program Manual
Build a Risk Management Program Improvement Plan
- A completed Risk Management Program Improvement Plan
Module 2: Reassess IT Risk Events and Identify New Threats
The Purpose
- To re-engage business stakeholders, re-assess IT risk events, and identify new risks.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Reassess your risk register and identify new risk events regularly to minimize the exposure of your organization.
Activities
Outputs
Review IT and business context changes
- An updated and complete Risk Register with all relevant IT risk events
Consider how context changes impact organizational risk tolerance
- An updated Risk Management Program Manual
Generate tactics to re-engage business stakeholders
- A revised stakeholder RACI
Determine if implemented risk responses were successful
Re-assess the severity of previously identified risk events
Augment risk event list with capability maps
- An updated and complete Risk Register with all relevant IT risk events
Assess the severity of newly identified risk events
Perform an expected cost assessment
Module 3: Develop Risk Responses and Communicate Priorities to the Business
The Purpose
- Establish monitoring responsibilities and develop risk responses.
- Assess and select risk responses for top risks and effectively communicate recommendations and priorities to the business.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Turn risk priorities into fully funded projects that have the support of the business.
- Effectively deliver IT risk expertise to the business to guide risk-conscious decision making.
- Communicate the value and success of the program in a compelling way to ensure continued support and engagement.
Activities
Outputs
Perform a root cause analysis
Identify and assess risk responses
Identify and assess risk responses
- Completed Risk Event Action Plans
Review a risk response cost-benefit analysis
- An updated Risk Management Program Manual
Create multi-year cost projections
Customize the IT Risk Management Executive Brief
- A communication guide and completed IT Risk Management Executive Brief
Finalize the Risk Report and Program Manual
- A detailed Risk Report
- An updated Risk Management Program Manual
Transfer ownership of risk responses to project managers