Problem-Set: Enterprise OPS Risk...

Who is responsible when a particular Operational Risk problem-set has risen to your organizational awareness?  Clue: It is not the name of a department or single person.

This means that all people in your company, agency or command unit may have encountered behaviors, information or evidence of potential Operational Risk loss event outcomes.

Until you have a documented 1-Pager in your organization, you don’t have a problem-set or someone with the responsibility to solve it.

What is the Problem-Set? Give it a short Title that identifies the issue.

How do you describe the Background on the new problem-set in less than two short paragraphs?

Explain the Challenge ahead.

In less than one paragraph of three or four sentences, explain what the intended outcomes of solving the problem-set will be.

Now provide the Boundaries in your process of discovery and activity, that will provide you with the solutions solving the problem-set.

Now, who is the Owner / Sponsor of this problem-set?

“You have an “Operational Risk” loss event potentially waiting to happen.”

The people and/or the team who have been assigned to the defined  “OPS_RISK_PROBLEM-SET” (ORP), now have the organizational responsibility and power to engage with mitigating the risk of the potential outcomes, by designing and implementing the prototype Solution.

If leadership assigns you to this particular 1-Pager, it is now your responsibility to follow the process and to execute the steps you have been trained to carry out within your organization.

This shall occur in a timely manner, based upon the severity of the Operational Risk:

Design an easy and memorable numerical scale that could be utilized with the team or owners of your Problem-Set to provide a quick numerical severity for the ORP.

SEVERITY / LIKELIHOOD OF LOSS EVENT

LOW >>>>> 1 >>>>> 3 >>>>> 6 >>>>> 10+ HIGH

Stack rank your company, agency or command unit ORPs from High Severity to Low Severity on a pre-determined schedule, relevant to the size and pace of your national regulatory requirements.

If your organization is categorized as one of the 16+ national Critical Infrastructure Sectors as defined by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), your organization shall engage in a continuous process of solving new problem-sets that are being continuously discovered in your enterprise.

Now you are on your way to solving more problem-sets with timely defined solutions within your entire Operational Risk Management (ORM) organization.

Onward!

Vantage Point: Never Stop Wondering...

If you grow up in America in a small town, it gives you a "Vantage Point". Especially, when that one day early in your life when you finally drive out of there.

So you are on to a new U.S. state, a new global time zone or traveling to a new place you have never been before.

In America, we like to drive a vehicle a thousand miles somewhere, across our country to observe. To learn. And to just explore.

Traveling from that small town in Michigan to a small college town at the foot of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, provided all kinds of new learning.

vantage point

noun

Synonyms of vantage point

: a position or standpoint from which something is viewed or considered

especially : POINT OF VIEW

The minute upon arrival, you could not take your eyes off of the mountains and the glorious sun sets above them.

It wasn’t much longer until it was time to explore, to walk up with a pack on your back. 

To visit that small “Blue Lake” in September, was definitely a vantage point at 9,300+ feet looking up at Mt. Audubon and Paiute Peak in the Rocky Mountains.

Lying out there under the thousands of stars in the new L.L. Bean Goose Down sleeping bag for the first time was so epic.

"Thinking about the journey so far, it was almost certain the infinite game had started."

This was going to be a life full of adventures, with so many stories to tell from small towns to a college campus to some of the largest cities in the world.

Once you begin, it’s difficult to stop exploring. It just seems like you can’t get deep enough or high enough on this planet.

Whether you are almost a hundred feet deep in the South Pacific holding hands with your new spouse, or thousands of feet high in the Monashees snow skiing in light powder does not matter. You are at another Vantage Point.

While you are learning throughout your life, what else do you wonder about?

Whether you are falling asleep under the stars or to the sounds of sirens in a metropolitan city near the quiet ocean, say a prayer.

Give thanks for all you have been given and witnessed so far in your life. Guess what, there are so many more "Vantage Points" to come.

Wonder…

Trusted Horizon: "Augmented Intelligence"...

When you read that critical powerpoint report last week at work, did you trust what the author had written?

How did you make the decision to trust the numbers that the author placed in the columns and rows chart on page 3?

Did you trust the author and source because of their previous track record of accuracy?

Did the numbers come from a sensor that has been tested in an independent lab to a 99% level of truth?

You trusted that report at work for a reason. It was a “Trust Decision”.

Why?

Have you personally tested the math? What is the source of the data?

So why do you trust Apple vs. Samsung? Verizon vs. AT&T?

Would you pay $100 for a machine that was 99% accurate or could you live with a machine that was 50% accurate and only cost $50?

Think about your mobile navigation mapping app. Where are you going?

These kind of discussions are fundamental yet necessary for us at this point in our digital innovation journey. Just as humans have since the inventions of the Personal Computer, Internet and Quantum Computing.

Trust Decisions are mathematical.

mathematical

adjective

1: of, relating to, or according with mathematics

2 a: rigorously exact : PRECISE

b: CERTAIN

3: possible but highly improbable

We have been trusting computers, data and all kinds of sensors as a result of established testing standards. You name it. ATM’s. Stock Markets. Airplanes. Rockets.  Satellites.

Today, would you trust the answer of any question asked to your favorite Large Language Model (LLM)?

LLM’s will challenge your future digital “Trust Decisions” because you might decide whether you believe Chat-Brand A vs. Bard-Brand B vs. Claude-Brand C.

No different than your preference today on using Google search or Bing.

Are human lives at stake? How will we ensure the trust of our digital machines? 

Into the future, our ability to produce high accuracy “Trust Decisions” will depend on your own “Augmented Intelligence” (Ai)...

Never Forget: Memories & Our Future Resilience Innovation…

On the dawn of September 11, 2023 our United States remembers and reflects.

The day 22 years since the attacks on our country 9/11/01 actualizes so many facets of our “Resilience”:

Emotional.

Educational.

Emergency Management, Transportation, Healthcare, Communications, Information Technology, Financial, Defense, Energy and so many others within our International Critical Infrastructure systems.

In the middle of a 8:30am business breakfast at the Reston, Virginia Hyatt on 9/11, the screams from those watching the bar TV across the restaurant will never be forgotten.

Our USA is so much more “Resilient” than we were over two decades ago and we have much further to reach, in order to achieve total functional resilience across new sectors.

The true commercialization of SPACE is far beyond the knowledge awareness of our average U.S. citizen. Unless of course, they have seen the film Apollo 13 or The Right Stuff.

Our SPACE infrastructure is rapidly growing from the key private sector companies ecosystem who have been in business for years.

More importantly, the new Space ecosystem of private sector companies beyond the traditional government aerospace suppliers to NASA, is currently providing vital resources and new SPACE technology innovation.

The growing supply chains for SPACE missions has already multiplied the requirements for resilience in so many new and different realms of our United States private sector, including academic engineering education and R&D environments.

Therefore, on the eve of this September 11, 2023 we must be even more vigilant to NEVER FORGET.

“Around and within our innovative U.S. Space infrastructure is a growing threat landscape and it requires: securing our space assets, increasing situational awareness, maintaining resilient satellite communications, creating new policy frameworks, expanding workforce development, and creating new emerging technologies.” --Space ISAC

So what?

The United States shall now create a 17th Critical Infrastructure domain, that shall require our resources and continuous innovation for the next 20+ years and beyond.

“Resilience of SPACE infrastructure” has always required key people from vital organizations:

“The Space ISAC (Information-Sharing-Analysis-Center) has launched in Colorado Springs, CO and is the only all-threats security information source for the public and private space sector.

“It is the most comprehensive and single point source for sharing data, facts and analysis on space security and threat to space assets. Space ISAC also provides analysis and resources to support response, mitigation and resilience initiatives.”

Who will we work with side-by-side, to prepare our response in an “All-Hazards” SPACE world that changes by the minute?

These dedicated people can be found solving SPACE problem-sets in our future innovation strategies by utilizing proven methodologies in:

• Mapping / Targeting

• Sketching / Solutions

• Deciding

• Prototyping / Testing

How shall we continuously work together to provide the correct tools, systems, knowledge and trusted experience to make a proactive global difference? 

It is our purpose and our mission to “Protect Critical SPACE Infrastructure” across our great nation and to ensure the resiliency of our people, systems and our organizations in the Public - Private Sector.

Secure: Find it...

What are you and your team doing this week to create a “Secure” environment?

Your organization is counting on you for all that defines this adjective:

Secure

adjective

se· cure si-ˈkyu̇r  -ˈkyər

securer; securest

1a: free from danger

b: affording safety

c: TRUSTWORTHY, DEPENDABLE

a secure foundation

d: free from risk of loss

2a: easy in mind : CONFIDENT

b: assured in opinion or expectation : having no doubt

How are you creating and maintaining a continuously “Secure” workplace, church, school, home, transportation system, main street or entire country environment?

It’s not the role or responsibility of One person. One department. One agency. One camera.

"Leadership as a CEO, Principal, Parent, Mayor or President requires you to continuously pursue a more “Secure” environment that requires focus and a persistent innovation mindset."

Your family, your employees, your town and your own nation are watching you.

You may think you understand the problem-set. You might try to use one tool. You will learn that you must continuously adapt. Build prototypes. Test again.

Your creative ability to change on the fly, your capability to act faster than the threat will make all the difference in your counter-response.

What are you measuring this day, week or month to determine what and where you need to adapt?

It is not always what you will be able to hear, smell or see with the naked eye. This is why innovators designed detectors, radar, alarms, cameras and even binoculars.

Asymmetric threats to our environments are Invisible. Undetectable. Irregular. Disordered. Atypical.

So what?

All of us, into eternity will remain responsible for our “Secure” environment.

Whether it may be in your global neighborhood, on campus, at the Mall, in your software, undersea, aerial or to Mars, you too shall have a role.

Find it…