Software Engineering Institute

Organizations face an ever-changing risk environment. The risk that emanates from the day-to-day activities of the organization, operational risk, is the subject of increasing attention, particularly in the banking and finance industry, because of the potential to significantly disrupt an organizations pursuit of its mission. Security, business continuity, and IT operations management are activities that traditionally support operational risk management. But collectively, they also converge to improve the operational resiliency of the organization—the ability to adapt to a changing operational risk environment as necessary. Coordinating these efforts to sustain operational resiliency requires a process-oriented approach that can be defined, measured, and actively managed. This report describes the fundamental elements and benefits of a process approach to security and operational resiliency and provides a notional view of a framework for process improvement.