It was an under-the-radar success of the FAIR movement: thousands of FAIR risk management students and practitioners learned Factor Analysis of Information Risk hands-on with our FAIR-U tool. But one particular limitation prevented users from learning more about FAIR: you couldn’t see how risk was calculated.
Now, we’ve introduced the next evolutionary step in FAIR education, the FAIR-U Workbook for Learners, a free resource for FAIR Institute members. Download the Excel Workbook here. Not a member? Join now for free.
The name gives away its primary benefit: use it to better understand the FAIR Model by interacting directly with a working application of it. It teaches you how to conduct manual,
With the workbook, users can see the formulas used to create the model, thereby better understanding FAIR’s mathematical underpinnings. It’s easy to see the role of Beta PERT distributions (with Minimum, Most Likely, Maximum, and Confidence Level values) and Monte Carlo simulations.
It’s also important to note that it was not built and is not warranted for real-world risk management. It is a learning tool only. There are real-world considerations that impact the calculations and reporting that cannot easily be replicated in the tool. Commercial FAIR tools are designed to address real-world situations.
The FAIR-U Workbook for Learners has some notable features:
—It’s built on Microsoft Excel (so a user must have Excel installed or have access to Excel online, e.g., via Office 365); free versions are available from Microsoft;
—It displays the underlying formulas, calculations and methodology for FAIR, fulfilling a longstanding wish among learners and users;
—It enables with some limitations the key functions of FAIR quantitative analysis: create risk scenarios, perform probability modeling with Monte Carlo simulations, interpret quantitative results;
—It provides some reports (charts), such as a loss exceedance curve, risk histogram (e.g., likelihood by “buckets” of risk exposure ranges), and histograms for each risk factor;
—There’s a “Test Data Generator” (see the last sheet of the workbook) so you can instantly populate the workbook with values;
—It is designed for self-paced or classroom learning and training and it may be licensed for non-commercial educational purposes under the Creative Commons license.
We’ve taken steps to ensure that you are downloading an authentic version of FAIR-U for Learners. This is important because it does rely on a few macros. You can read about how to verify the file integrity on our download page.
See the FAQs for the FAIR-U Workbook for Learners. We also welcome your feedback or suggestions on this beta version of the workbook. Please email us at fairu@fairinstitute.org with any suggestions for improvement.