Three pieces of advice for improving any organisation's governance and risk management.

Risk management has become an integral part of governance and, when properly embedded, drives the delivery of strategic objectives. Ensuring boards and executive teams have the right approach to risk is essential to ensuring the organisation avoids catastrophic threats and takes advantage of significant opportunities. 

Here we share three simple lessons that will improve your organisation's governance and risk management. 

Keep your risk framework as simple as possible.

Overengineering the risk framework will significantly reduce its effectiveness. It is all too common for risk managers to create a labyrinth of intricate processes, collect too much irrelevant information or make scoring too complex and hard to follow. Reduce the complexity of your risk framework, and it will quickly become more effective and embedded throughout all levels of your organisation.

Manage risks using a dedicated, structured, secure tool.

Struggling to manage risks with outdated tools, such as spreadsheets and word documents, will significantly decrease the effectiveness of your risk management process. 

Using a digital tool designed specifically for risk management provides more structure, more context and the ability to share the identification, capture and management of risk with a broader group of stakeholders. 

A well-designed, visual, digital dashboard also gives the board and senior management team a clear view of the state of risks, objectives and controls from the highest level down to specific departments and teams. 

Distributing information to the board securely is also crucial. Adding modern security features such as multi-factor authentication and layers of permissions and access control creates a robust environment for sharing sensitive governance information.

User-friendly design is a critical feature.

A clear, easy-to-use system for anyone to capture and evaluate risk is essential to improving adoption, saving time and reducing effort.

Not everyone in the organisation will have been exposed to risk management theory or understand the complexities and nuances of the subject the way a trained risk professional may. 

By ensuring the interface is clear and straightforward, walks the user through the steps logically and provides plenty of help and support, you will improve the quality of your risk information significantly and ensure that risks are properly under control.

Decision Time is a governance tool that provides risk managers and boards with an easy-to-implement approach to risk management. Our solution offers all the clarity, oversight and analysis you need to control risk, exploit opportunities and minimise threats.

Managing multiple registers in an environment where everything is auditable with clear reporting and alerts gives assurance to the board, auditors, external stakeholders and regulators. 

Decision Time has a unique software platform, but, just as importantly, it has the experience and skills honed from deploying solutions in almost 90 housing associations across the UK & Ireland, including Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing, LiveWest, Karbon Homes, Wales & West Housing, Clúid Housing and Link Group. 

To learn more about how our solution has helped over 300 organisations across the UK and Ireland, visit our product page here. You can also find out more about our housing association customers on our website DecisionTime/Housing Sector or get in touch if you would like a demonstration of Decision Time.