Implement and Optimize an Effective Security Management Metrics Program

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Security investments, requiring time and money, are often made without adequate supporting information as to the relative benefit of one investment vs. another.
Many organizations and subject matter experts recognize the difficulty of establishing and maintaining an effective metrics program. This results in an inability to acquire management/leadership support for changes or additions needed for the security technology, policy, and process environment.
In a resource-constrained environment, availability of additional resources for investment will be limited without solid evidence. Metrics allow the organization to understand its current state and highlight unnecessary risks and opportunities to reduce those risks.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

Value vs. effort: The success of a metrics program is largely due to understanding the difference between quality and quantity. Attempting to measure anything and everything is not an efficient use of staff time and creates the potential for inconsistent measurements. For the most efficiency, devote your time to knowing what metrics will be provided to your organization, as well as assurance of their relevance, reliability, and reproducibility.
Metrics are a journey, not a destination: An effective metrics program takes time. Identifying which stage your organization is at in terms of your metrics needs – minimum, recommended, or advanced metrics – allows you to prioritize which metrics you need to measure now and how your organization can continue to mature in metrics.
Justify the spend: Use metrics to support your security investments with tangible, quantitative evidence. Communicate with management and facilitate decision making with objective benefits, rationales, and risks to back funding of security controls. Metrics can be used to prove which investments are worthwhile to the organization.

Impact and Result

Short term: Streamline your program. Based on your organization’s specific requirements and risk profile, figure out what metrics are best for now while also planning for future metrics as your organization matures. Choose metrics that focus on overall business impact and provide the most actionable insight, rather than numbers for the sake of numbers.
Long term: Once the program is in place, improvements will come with increased visibility into operations. Investments in security will be encouraged with more evidence available to executives, contributing to improved security posture overall. Potential for eventual cost savings also exists as there is more informed security spend and fewer incidents.

Implement and Optimize an Effective Security Management Metrics Program Research & Tools

Start here – read the Executive Brief

Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should implement a security management metrics program, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

Implement and Optimize an Effective Security Management Metrics Program – Executive Brief

1. Establish baseline metrics

Assess the necessity of metrics and identify the organization’s risk tolerance level to determine corresponding recommended security management metrics.

2. Develop the metrics program roadmap

Prioritize the list of metrics to develop a strategic roadmap for tracking and reporting management metrics.

3. Track and report the metrics

Understand tools available to track metrics and guidance for reporting what matters.

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.

Client

Experience

Impact

$ Saved

Days Saved

Testimonial

Statistics New Zealand

Guided Implementation

9/10

$12,300

Federal Signal-Corporation

Guided Implementation

10/10

N/A

Canadian Institutes of Health

Guided Implementation

8/10

N/A

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Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.

We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.

What Is a Blueprint?

A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.

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Table of Contents

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Get the help you need in this 3-phase advisory process. You'll receive 8 touchpoints with our researchers, all included in your membership.

Guided Implementation 1: Establish your metrics baseline

Call 1: Discuss metrics overview, current state, and key metric information collection
Call 2: Assess current and target state
Call 3: Analyze gaps (if not achieved in second call)