erm success Archives - Carol Williams

7 Questions for Understanding the Fundamentals of Risk Appetite

The concept of risk appetite is probably the most confusing and controversial part of the enterprise risk management process. If you do a search for risk appetite, you will find a wide variety of perspectives on how to develop and use it. While there may be an implied risk appetite or a generic statement on…

Top 19 Risk Management Resources for 2019

This time last year, I wrote a well-received article providing my favorite 18 risk management resources. Well, it is time to provide a new list of 19 resources as you start making progress towards achieving your 2019 goals for risk management. Over the recent months, I have really focused on expanding my skills outside of…

The Ultimate Primer for Effective Risk Reporting

A mechanism for ensuring leadership, business managers, and other stakeholders make risk-informed decisions and fulfill oversight duties At the end of the day, the ERM process should be regarded as a cycle or feedback loop…meaning, there’s never a definitive end point. It’s like the four seasons of the year – there’s never an end point,…

ERM Implementation: What Risk Professionals Consider the #1 Challenge To Be

Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadI recently asked of fellow risk professionals “what is your single biggest challenge when it comes to ERM implementation?” What do you think the answers were? Maybe figuring out how to assess risks? Maybe integrating with strategy? Or aggregation of risks? Nope. Tone at the top! Yes, the executives…

Why Assigning a Risk Owner is Important and How to Do It Right

Falling in the middle of the risk management cycle (after developing risk appetite and tolerance and identifying, but before assessing and analyzing risks), the organization then must identify who will “own” or be responsible for a particular risk. Although the exact definition of what a risk owner is will vary depending on the organization, it…

Risk Transfer – A Response Strategy for Limiting Damage from a Negative Event

An article published in early 2017 giving a brief overview of risk response strategies has been one of my most popular…and it still resonates with risk management professionals. I’ve wanted to dive deeper into each of these risk response strategies to provide readers with a little more background on how a particular one applies to…

What to Look for in an External ERM Resource or Consultant

Extending on our theme from last week on the people side of ERM, I want to outline some things I think organizations should look for in an external ERM resource (a.k.a. “consultant”). Although I outline the skills and personal qualities of an effective ERM professional in a prior post, there are special considerations when looking…

Relationships: A Common but Fatal Mistake of Risk Management

The majority of articles on my blog focus on the process side of enterprise risk management. I’ve discussed at great length subjects like setting up an ERM program, risk identification, risk assessment, and more. However, the process and technical skills is only part of what goes into a successful, value-enhancing ERM program. If you’re like…

The Hazards of Implementing ERM without a Plan

I cannot tell you how many times someone has asked me questions about random parts of an ERM program. The discussions range from basic concepts all the way to advanced topics. What is prompting the jumping between topics? It is typically these two things: Someone looked up ERM and saw some aspects, which looked really…

3 Ways to Avoid the Check-the-Box Trap in Risk Review

In both my experience and according to a white paper from PwC, a common ERM challenge is how an annual risk review becomes a check-the-box activity. It shouldn’t be this way… Regardless of the reasons, everyone from executives all the way down to entry-level managers and employees have enough “bureaucratic” burdens as it is. An…