CISOs face continuous changes in threats, security technologies, and business conditions that complicate their mission to protect critical assets. While technical skills are essential, the top performing CISOs engage with the business and practice proactive organizational engagement. This document outlines the 7 Factors of CISO Impact framework, which provides a structured approach for CISOs to measure and improve their performance in areas like gaining command of facts, engaging stakeholders, and driving insight to enable action. It also describes workshops where CISOs can assess their skills, learn from peers, and develop concrete plans to strengthen areas for improvement.

1. CISOs and their teams operate against a backdrop of continuous change in the threat
landscape, information security technology, and business conditions. The mission to
protect critical assets across space and time is further complicated by a lack of direct
control over the people and processes that expose the organization to risk through day-
to-day operations.
In-depth research with hundreds of information security leaders revealed
a common thread among the top performers:
Technical skills, while essential, are not enough.
To deliver maximum impact, Information Security must
engage with the business and practice proactive
organizational engagement.

2. To drive insight and enable action
on these “soft skills,” IANS has
broken proactive organizational
engagement down into a set of
clearly defined, quantifiable
elements we call The 7 Factors
of CISO Impact.
Our CISO Impact framework provides a
structured, action-oriented approach that
allows you to baseline your performance
and measure progress down to the Factor
and sub-Factor levels as you work towards
b e t t e r p ro a c t i v e o rg a n i z a t i o n a l
engagement.

3. First step: take the Diagnostic.
The Diagnostic is an online self-
assessment that measures the current
state of your team’s organizational
engagement. Your personal report
provides you with insight into your team’s
strengths and weaknesses, and allows
you to compare the results to those of
your peers.
As you work to improve your skill sets in
each of the 7 Factors, your Diagnostic
results will reflect your progress.

4. Then, attend
a CISO Impact
Workshop.
The CISO Impact Workshop is a four-hour
deep dive into one of the 7 Factors of
CISO Impact.
IANS-proprietary worksheets will help you
break down your Factor-specific Diagnostic
results into concrete, step-by-step actions
for improvement.
You’ll experience a new way of thinking
about what you do, and walk away with
insights that will influence the way that you
execute your mission.

5. A CISO Impact Workshop is a collaborative
hands-on working session.
Wrap-Up
Review lessons
learned and
discuss of how
improvement
will drive
success.Introductions
Get to know your
fellow CISOs
Workshop Orientation
The IANS facilitator
describes the workshop
context, components and
flow for the day
Solo Work
Document your
team’s skills and
processes vs. the
workshop Factor.
Presentations &
Feedback
Present your
workbook
writings and
receive feedback
from your peers.
Research Overview
A discussion of the
research and structure of
the CISO Impact
framework
Diagnostic
An explanation of how
the CISO Impact self-
assessment tool works
What are the 7 Factors?
An overview of the individual
7 Factors of CISO Impact,
and a look at how they all
work together to drive
success.
Small Group
Discussion
Share ideas and
challenges with
your small group

6. 9 out of 10 CISOs do not have full
command of the facts they need to be
truly effective. Why not?
Our research shows that CISOs struggle to identify –
and gain business leader consensus about – their
organization’s most critical information assets, as well
as the risks posed to those assets. What can you do to
change this?
At a recent Factor 1 Workshop, we posed the question:
Factor 1:
Gain Command
of the Facts.

7. “Getting our hands on a prioritized
inventory of assets is hard. We can
auto-discover all day long but
getting to consensus with the
business on the impact of loss or
compromise…” “The business is asking
for an outlook on the
future but modeling
skills are scarce.”
“With the threat landscape
in constant change we have
to revisit risk assessments
more and more frequently.”
Participants discussed the challenges …
… and through that discussion, shared
thoughts on how to address the problem.

8. You’ll walk away with strategies for success
in real-world situations. For example,
you’ll learn how to:
• Understand how to find and gain organizational
agreement on your organization’s critical assets.
• When building attacker profiles, consider your biggest
threats. How do you identify them? What signs are you
looking for?
• Leverage existing, accepted business models of loss-
of-availability situations to develop your response
plans.
• Begin first steps to build an inventory of your
information and control assets.