Most people who know me will understand when I say I am not technical in my field. Indeed, I have often spoken about how a CISO should not be technical; that doesn’t mean a CISO should not understand technology, but rather that is not the focus of the daily job. So what should a CISO focus on? I often talk about “Powerpoint and politics” and have even heard that expanded to …” and people” which makes sense really. Interestingly though, I used to say it as a joke, and then it came true. Huh.

This weeks video from The Lost CISO series talks about how to build a strategy. Or rather, it talks about how to build the platform upon which to build your strategy. One of the biggest mistakes I see organisations and CISO’s make is thinking that a security strategy comes from the roadmap of projects they will be rolling out over the next 1-3-5 years. Sure, they may feed into a strategy, but they play a small part of it.

Building a strategy requires knowing where you want to go, and what you are supporting. Essentially, it is a vision of the future, so no surprises for guessing that you start with a Vision statement. If, like me from 10 years ago, thought a Vision Statement was a way for expensive pony-tailed consultants to charge thousands a day to simply tell you to “strive to support our customers in a meaningful manner”, you may baulk at this starting point. Fully understandable, but also cynical, and let’s not allow past bad experiences taint our new approach.

The reason I say this is not because I have a ponytail, expensive or otherwise, but rather because a vision is effectively a rallying point around which your security team can focus on. If they do not know what they are working towards, you and your team will be in a perpetual state of fire fighting and reactive work. It doesn’t matter how many projects you have in place, or roadmaps printed nicely on A0 on the design teams plotter; if you don’t know what you are working towards how do you know if you are succeeding?

Make sure you know what the company vision is as well, otherwise you might create one that is pulling in the opposite direction, which helps no-one. Thom’s Top Tip: If you can create a security vision without the word “security” in it, you will definitely be on the right track (although this is by no means mandatory). Your vision, therefore, may look a little like this:

Delivering competitive advantage through trust and transparency.

It’s pretty high-level, doesn’t mention security, and gives people on the team some key pointers on how to consciously modify their behaviour towards a common goal.

But a Vision by itself isn’t enough, you also need some business outcomes to be achieved in order to achieve this Vision. Think of 3-5 or so outcomes that you want to achieve in order to fulfil your Vision, then add a metric (how you know it is being achieved) and an outcome (what benefit does it bring?). You then have one element of your 3-5 business outcomes that allow you to plan work, focus resources and (you will be glad to hear) add to your roadmap. So, for example, here is a business outcome, metric and value in support of the above Vision:

Business Outcome: Frictionless and scalable business processes.

Metric: Higher quality and faster outcomes.

Value: Standardisation resulting in increased efficiencies including easier decision making and better use of time, effort and money.

Add some more like this, and you have a robust vision upon which to build your strategy. Now you can think about how you are going to be doing that because you now have a better idea of what you need to do to achieve the company goals, what resources you need (including skills), and more importantly how you want to shape the future of your security team, and more importantly, your organisation. The whole point of a strategy is to ensure that your future is not an inevitability you have no control over, but rather you can invent it to be what you want and need it to be.

Looking to take your security team to the next level of productivity and business engagement? (TL)2 Security can help you define, establish and operationalise your strategy and vision ensuring you go beyond just keeping the lights on, and actually providing competitive advantage to your business. Contact us to find out more.