Bob: "Hey Jane, how's that risk assessment coming along?"
Jane: "Don't even get me started, Bob. I've been going over the draft report and the risk register spreadsheet for days, and my brain is officially mush."
Bob: "Tell me about it. I had to do one for the procurement team for our latest IT project last month, and I swear I felt my IQ dropping with every hour that went by."
Jane: "And the worst part is, no one ever reads them. They just get filed away and forgotten about."
Bob: "Exactly! More shelfware! It's like a never-ending cycle of bureaucracy. Write the report, file it away, repeat."
Jane: "And the jargon! Oh my god, the jargon. BCM, BIA, DRM, ERM, VAR, social-engineering, ISO31000, COSO, I had to Google half the terms to understand what they were asking for."
Bob: "Yeah, it's like they made it as confusing and overwhelming as possible to make us suffer. Or just to be able to charge higher consulting fees!"
Jane: "I think the only people who enjoy risk assessments are the ... Er, actually, I don't think anyone does."
Bob: "Well, at least we can laugh about it. Have you seen the latest meme about risk assessments? It's a picture of a cat sleeping on a pile of paperwork with the caption 'When you realize you have to do a risk assessment.'"
Jane: "Hahaha, that's too good. I'm definitely using that as my screensaver for the next few days."
Bob: "I think we should start a petition to make all risk assessments in the form of memes. Who's with me?"
Jane: "I'm all for it. Let's make risk assessments fun! Or at least as quick and easy and painless as possible."
THE GOOD NEWS
If you've read this far, you can probably relate. Luckily for you, I feel the same way about risk assessments. Honestly, I like the process, the benefits that risk management can produce, the places I visit during risk assessments, and the people I meet. But I'm not so keen on report writing.
Don't tell my clients that I dislike report writing. I suspect they already know and feel the same way, so they hire me to write the reports. But don't tell the world, OK?
Over the years, I've been looking for a better solution. I've built a lot of Excel spreadsheets with macros and formulas to automate the process. You can download them from the (you guessed it) DOWNLOADS menu.
But I could never find a decent software package. At one point, back in the JBS days, we bought out a software company called RiskAction to upgrade their risk management software. Ultimately, it proved too hard (a.k.a. too expensive), so we shelved that project.
Fast forward a few years, and the software development process is much simpler with cloud computing, low-code development, etc. And there is this thing called Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), which makes things a whole lot simpler.
After a glass of red wine or three, a few friends and I decided to build the software we were looking for. Something that, at the very least, could streamline the tedious task of risk assessment report writing.
SECTARA is a pretty awesome tool (as self-assessed by the team and me) that makes risk assessments easy, intuitive, and fun. We use it all the time for our risk assessments, so we've worked hard to give it a user-friendly interface and step-by-step guidance to streamline the process. Our focus is to make it fast and efficient so that we can return to the more important aspects of life, such as taking risks on motorcycles or having adventures.
SECTARA is based on ISO31000 international risk management and our decades of experience (i.e., doing things the hard way). There is a free trial and money-back guarantee, so, If you'd like to say goodbye to the snooze-inducing task of risk assessments, say hello to SECTARA.
