How to Reduce Operational Risk in IT

Operational risk in IT encompasses the potential for loss resulting from inadequate or failed internal processes, people, systems, or external events. While it's impossible to eliminate all risk, organisations can take practical steps to identify, assess, and mitigate the most significant threats to their operations.

The foundation of operational risk management is visibility. You cannot manage risks you don't know about. This means maintaining accurate documentation of your systems, understanding dependencies, and regularly reviewing your IT landscape for potential vulnerabilities.

Redundancy is a key strategy for reducing operational risk. This doesn't mean duplicating everything—that would be prohibitively expensive—but rather identifying critical systems and ensuring appropriate failover capabilities exist. The level of redundancy should match the business impact of potential failures.

Change management processes play a crucial role in operational risk reduction. Many IT incidents stem from changes that weren't properly planned, tested, or communicated. Implementing structured change management doesn't mean slowing down; it means making changes more predictable and reversible.

Regular testing of your disaster recovery and business continuity plans is essential. A plan that hasn't been tested is really just a hope. Tabletop exercises and actual recovery tests help identify gaps before they become real problems.

Key Takeaways

• Maintain comprehensive documentation of systems and dependencies
• Implement appropriate redundancy for critical systems
• Establish structured change management processes
• Test disaster recovery plans regularly
• Monitor systems proactively to identify issues early
• Train staff on operational procedures
• Review and update risk assessments periodically

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