The Agile Maturity Model for
Audit and Risk Professionals
To understand the full spectrum of capabilities of your risk and compliance program, you need a
deeper understanding of your program’s agility and what it takes to become more agile to risk. That
is why it is critical to be equipped with a specific framework that details how to achieve a greater
level of agility.
Organizations often fall victim to a state of constant risk, sacrificing the opportunity to advise leadership
and implement more strategic risk management because of process inefficiencies. The often-overlooked
permanent resolution of this problem is connectivity—connecting people, processes, and data across
programs. Evaluating these levels of agility can equip teams to be more agile—seeing risk with more clarity,
advising the business with confidence, and adapting to new and emerging risk.
Transforming
Advising
Performing
Discovering
Agility of
the function
Reacting
Processes are
delivery- and
deadline-driven
with minimal
connectivity.
Teams are able
to recognize
and articulate
unscalable and
time-consuming
processes.
Processes are
advanced and
automated
through
connectivity for
better insight.
Risk evaluation
is proactive
and shifts from
identification to
recommendation.
Connectivity across people, data, and processes
Teams are
influential and
serve as strategic
partners ready to
capitalize on new
opportunities.
The Five Stages of Agile Maturity
Reacting
Discovering
Performing
The organization’s effort to address
most risk, control, and compliance
reporting is marked by isolation and
executed with a just-in-time delivery
approach. The deadline of each
individual asset is what drives nearly
all activity.
Teams want to do their work in
advance rather than right up to
deadlines and implement a more
repeatable and collaborative
workflow. They are actively
searching for solutions or tools to
remedy the situation.
Teams have visibility into their risk
coverage and are beginning to
automate their processes. Targeted
technological investment focuses on
key components of risk and controls,
allowing people, processes, and data
to be more connected.
Key to advancing:
Key to advancing:
Key to advancing:
Recognition that current processes
are not scalable
Implementing a tool to address
risk automation processes
Proactively making recommendations for
growth to stakeholders via automation
Advising
Transforming
Teams are maturing their processes
and are able to proactively palliate
risks and make recommendations
to the organization.
Teams are valued for their
knowledge of risk throughout
the organization and serve as an
ongoing resource for identifying
business opportunities and
achieving objectives.
Key to advancing:
Earning trust and rapport with
executive stakeholders
Attain Your Goals Through Iterative, Scaled Success
At Workiva, we believe in the power of connectivity between people, processes, and data. This belief is at our core—we
crafted our solutions in the relentless pursuit to provide our customers solutions to building stronger, more risk-averse
teams, all with connectivity at the forefront. Ultimately, this approach helps teams achieve organizational goals and
become strategic, trusted business advisors.
As the leader in connected cloud solutions, Workiva is uniquely capable of helping risk and compliance teams protect their
organizations and achieve organizational goals. Trusted by over 3,500 companies across 180+ countries, our customers have
linked over five billion data elements to instill trust in data, reduce risk, and save time.
See how it works at workiva.com
20200604-j85061
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