project management

Why Organizations Struggle with Key Risk Indicators and How to Make them Work

If done properly, key risk indicators (KRIs) can be a valuable tool for proactively managing risks to achieving strategic objectives. As I explain in a previous article, being proactive is one of the key differences between traditional and enterprise risk management. Despite their potential for facilitating the proactive management of risk, around 70% of organizations…

ERM at Thanksgiving – An Illustration of Risk Management in Action

It’s Thanksgiving week in the U.S. – the air is crisp, Fall colors abound, and there is a palatable excitement as we enter the year-end holiday season. This week’s holiday provides a great opportunity to reconnect with family and old friends and take stock of what we’re grateful for. On occasion, I like to take…

3 Easy Steps to Ensure an Optimal Outcome for Enterprise Risk Management

You have been asked to meet a deadline to accomplish a given goal for enterprise risk management in your organization. What is the first thing you do? You instantly start making a list of all the necessary steps (doesn’t matter whether the list is electronic, hard-copy, or a mental list). Then you put those steps…

What are Organizations’ True Barriers to Implementing ERM?

My posts for this month (May 2019) have focused on results from the 2019 State of Risk Oversight report from NC State. Each of these posts (see here and here) not only reported survey results but also included additional commentary based on my experience. Up to this point, I had no reason to challenge anything…

How to Ensure Risks to Initiatives are Being Considered Alongside Objectives

A reader sent me a question about identifying risks to initiatives… More specifically, the reader wanted to know how she could ensure that risk identification focused on objectives doesn’t lose sight of risks that may be associated with initiatives. Before going any further, I want to provide a couple of quick definitions: Objectives – a…

Key Players for Successful Risk Identification

In order to have a risk management effort that ultimately “creates, protects, and enhances shareholder value,” you must first have a successful risk identification process. I’ve said it many times, and have heard it repeated elsewhere, that risk identification serves as the foundation for the entire risk management process…without it, the entire process is just…

GDPR Compliance Exposes Huge Interdependencies within Organizations

Now that some of the heat has died down on this topic, I thought it would be a good time to discuss observations about GDPR from an ERM perspective. Last month, the General Data Privacy Regulation from the EU was a hot topic. You undoubtedly received emails from your subscriptions and apps explaining that new…

3 Steps to Building an Effective KRI System Today

If your executives and managers love metrics, then they’re sure to use Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Even if they don’t like numbers, any smart executive will be reviewing their KPIs dashboard. These historical measures are designed to gauge performance to ensure goals and milestones are being met. As risk professionals, though, we know the value…

Taking ERM to the Next Level: Adding Value to Projects and Processes

The last two weeks have been focused on how you can free up existing ERM resources, either by resource allocation or revamping your risk assessment process. Now you can allocate those resources to better understand your enterprise risks and to create action plans and lower high risks to acceptable levels. Once you’ve completed those activities,…

Three Ways to Reduce Organizational Change Risk

Organizational change is something we experience and hear about all the time. Don’t you get tired of change? Goodness knows, I do! How many times has an organizational change, like a merger, acquisition, internal reorganization, or market expansion, not succeeded? Too many times to count. In fact, a CEB 2016 Workforce Change survey showed that…

project management

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