Generic scenarios are a good starting point, but risk owners engage and provide better input when they can clearly seehow a scenario applies to their own processes, assets, and objectives.
CRISC scenario guidance notes that:
Risk scenarios are most effective in assessing business risk when they are tailored to the enterprise’s actual processes and objectives.
When developing IT-related risk scenarios with a top-down approach, practitioners identify business objectives as the most important factor.
A top-down approach driven by business objectives results in risk scenarios applicable to an enterprise’s identified risk.
That means you shouldtranslate generic scenarios into concrete, business-specific situationsfor each risk owner:
For HR: “Unauthorized access to employee personal data due to misconfigured cloud storage”
For Finance: “Unavailability of the payment system during month-end close”
This makes it easier for risk owners to:
Assess realistic likelihood and impact.
Identify relevant existing controls and gaps.
Commit to risk responses because they see direct relevance to their objectives.
Options A, B and C are helpful artifacts and practicesafteror around the tailoring step, but they do not directly solve the core issue of engagement and meaningful input.
Therefore, the MOST helpful approach is todevelop scenarios applicable to each area(Option D), in line with CRISC’s emphasis thatrisk scenarios should be primarily based on the threats the enterprise faces and aligned to business objectives.
