Transcription  

Sometimes risk assessment can be used as a tool to get your people communicating and bring them together to accomplish your business goals. One time we were working on an audit with an organization, and as we were going from department to department, it became clear that everyone was not on the same page. People did not understand why they had certain controls implemented, and other people were pushing back that those controls were even needed in the first place. There weren’t really strong reasons for why they had selected the controls that they did. And so, the answer to that was a risk assessment. We brought everybody together and did a risk assessment session from different representatives from each of the different departments. Long story short, everybody came out of there with an understanding of what risk they faced as an organization, and they started understanding why certain controls were being requested by management, other departments, and clients. It was really a great tool to utilize to get everyone talking at the same table about the risks that the organization faced and getting everyone out of their individual silos where they were actually working against one another when it came to control implementation and risk management. At the end of the day, they had a documented risk assessment, and they were all able to discuss these issues more freely and openly.