It starts with good intentions. You are trying to maximize the time you have with a subject matter expert because of calendars filled with back-to-back meetings so you jump right into the data gathering phase before defining the scope of your analysis. Soon you’re knee deep in three years’ worth of infosec data and have gone on more tangents than a high school geometry class.
How Does it Happen?
There are plenty of ways this can happen, but here are a few common ones:
While logical, these objections are misguided. To learn more about the risk of a poorly scoped analysis, click here.
How to Identify When You Are Off Track
If you feel like you may be getting off track, ask yourself the following questions:
These questions help create the guardrails for your analysis. If you answer “no” or “I’m not sure” to any of these questions during the analysis, it may be time to press pause and refocus.
How to Get Back on Track
When you’ve gotten off track in an analysis, refer back to your guardrails. Identify what information you currently have that is relevant to your scope and any areas where follow-ups may be required. Avoid high school geometry the second time around by writing context-specific questions for each data point you are gathering.
Next time, start off on the right foot by following analysis best practices.
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