Time Study

In ESG’s 2018 report “The Life of Cybersecurity Professionals,” 36% of participants expressed the overwhelming workload was a stressful aspect of their job.
Organizations expect a lot from their security specialists. From monitoring the threat environment, protecting business assets, and learning new tools, to keeping up with IT initiatives, cybersecurity teams struggle to balance their responsibilities with the constant emergencies and disruptions that take them away from their primary tasks.
Businesses fail to recognize the challenges associated with task prioritization and the time management practices of a security professional.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

The majority of scheduled calendar meetings include employees and peers.
- Our research indicates cybersecurity professionals spent the majority of their meetings with employees (28%) and peers (24%). Other stakeholders involved in meetings included by myself (15%), boss (13%), customers (10%), vendors (8%), and board of directors (2%).
Calendar meetings are focused on project work, management, and operations.
- When asked to categorize calendar meetings, the focus was on project work (26%), management (23%), and operations (22%). Other scheduled meetings included ones focused on strategy (15%), innovation (9%), and personal time (5%).
Time management scores were influenced by the percentage of time spent with employees and peers.
- When participants were divided into good and poor time managers, we found good time managers spent less time with their peers and more time with their employees. This may be due to the nature of employee meetings being more directly tied to the project outputs of the manager than their peer meetings. Managers who spend more time in meetings with their employees feel a sense of accomplishment, and hence rate themselves higher in time management.

Impact and Result

Understand how cybersecurity professionals allocate their time.
Gain insight on whether perceived time management skills are associated with calendar maintenance factors.
Identify common time management pain points among cybersecurity professionals.
Identify current strategies cybersecurity professionals use to manage their time.

Time Study Research & Tools

1. Read our Time Study

Read our Time Study to understand how cybersecurity professionals allocate their time, what pain points they endure, and tactics that can be leveraged to better manage time.

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Author

Michelle Tran

Contributors

Alain Bouit, CISO, Oregon State Treasury
Amanda Bluett, Director of Cyber Defense for APAC, CBRE
Bob Turner, CISO, University of Wisconsin- Madison
Carl Stolfi, Senior Vice President – Information Security & Compliance, Global Partner LP
Chris Borders, Systems Security Engineer, Anne Arundel Community College
Claude Sam-Foh, Chief Enterprise Architect, Financial Services Commission of Ontario
Clay Jenkins, Information Security and IT Operations Leader
Dennis Murathaty, Director and Chief Security Officer, World Intellectual Property Organization
Dwayne Stevens, Vice President of Information Security, WestCare Foundation
John Pomeroy, Head of Risk Management, Cyber Security & Compliance, City of Toronto
John Jessop, Associate director, Affiliate Information Security Program, Planned Parenthood of Southern New England
Linda Vigesaa, CIO/CTO – Mt Hood Community College
Michael Welch, CISO
Rich Yates, Head of IT Risk and Governance, ISG Central Services
Rob Chester, Information Security Manager, Pollard Banknote Limited
Rob Morse, CIO/CTO, Platte River Power Authority
Scott Moser, Senior Director, Cybersecurity & Deputy CISO, Caesars Entertainment
Steve Yurich, Information Security Manager
Toi Fields, Managing Director of Information Security
Warren Seet, Head of Information Security, Auckland Transport
Wes Knight, CISO
18 anonymous contributors