Frequently Asked Questions

  • SHIRPA™ is a human-centered enterprise governance and risk-alignment framework. It helps organizations build trust, operate predictably, make better decisions, and take action when risk exceeds tolerance. It focuses on organizational conditions rather than tools or compliance checklists.

  • SHIRPA addresses gaps between intent and execution—where organizations have policies, controls, or tools, but inconsistent behavior, unclear decisions, or unmanaged risk. It provides a structured way to align people, operations, information, and risk response.

  • No. SHIRPA is not a security standard, compliance checklist, or toolset. While it supports security and risk management, its purpose is broader: improving governance, alignment, and decision-making across the organization.

  • SHIRPA™ is an acronym representing the for principles of the framework: Security, Hygiene, Information, & Risk Posture Alignment.

  • The framework consists of:

    • Security – How people feel about risk

    • Hygiene – How well the organization operates

    • Information – What decisions are based on

    • Risk Posture Alignment – How the organization responds when risk exceeds tolerance

    These domains reinforce one another and must be addressed together.

  • Security refers to the shared human sense of safety and confidence within the organization. When people understand risks and trust how they are managed, they build a common understanding of risk enabling them to act decisively as a team rather than defensively as individuals.

  • Hygiene represents operational health across the dimensions of workforce, workflow, and automation. It focuses on clear roles, clear cross-functional processes, and systems that support functional outcomes aligned with business objectives.

  • Information is the quality, and trustworthiness of the data — and sources of data — people use to make decisions. Poor quality and unreliable data leads to erosion of trust of the entire system — in the same why that not trusting your brakes will discourage driving fast.

  • Risk Posture Alignment is the active response when risk exceeds organizational appetite and tolerance levels. The need for risk posture alignment is why the SHIRPA body of work was created.

  • High quality “Information” is data obtained from trusted and trustworthy sources. Data extracted from systems that represent truth are a common source. Data resulting from well formed processes is valuable. External data from reliable sources such as weather and threat information. The information principle leads to selectively curating data from only trusted sources to preserve the integrity of the system.

  • Risk Posture Alignment occurs when commitments don’t just exist on paper but have been translated into actions and results that are reliable and provably consistent with the letter and spirit of the commitments.

  • SHIRPA focuses on the subdomain of cyber related risks. It directly feeds the ERM — other executive management functions — the data it needs to rely on with considering other enterprise risk factors. SHIRPA delivers high fidelity, and high quality decision support information.

  • SHIRPA is supported by modular frameworks and tools that reinforce one or more domains while remaining adaptable. These include governance models, training systems, metrics structures, and process analysis tools.

  • No. SHIRPA does not dictate specific technologies, controls, or policies. It provides Enterprise Cyber Risk Governance structure, allowing organizations to translate promises made into validated practices.

    The SHIRPA ecosystem is intentionally designed to be applicable with few changes to the system within which is being applied.

    The SHIRPA practitioner learns to “live of the land” and “take what is given” rather than drive transformation using disruptive force. This in turn reduces resistance to change — a common blocker to success projects.

  • SHIRPA is designed for leaders and change agents where ever they exist.

    Organization’s need predictable execution, trustworthy decision-making, and disciplined risk response—especially where complexity, scale, or regulatory pressure already exists.

    If you see gaps between what is required and what is real then you are the audience.

  • No. SHIRPA does not promise specific results or compliance outcomes. It improves the conditions under which good decisions, aligned action, and desired outcomes are possible.

    SHIRPA does however reduce the risk of NOT delivering targeted outcomes.

  • Organizations are commonly made aware of the SHIRPA value by being exposed to it as a supliment to an existing 3rd party transformation project. Once it’s been seen in action people find it becomes the most reasonable way to establish a reliable Enterprise Cyber Risk Governance operation.

    Use the contact page to request more information than is made available here.

  • No. SHIRPA is a framework. Supporting tools, methods, and capabilites are built around it.

    Work is in progress to create an Agentic AI workforce that can be used to streamline SHIRPA implementation and operations.

    Let us know if this is of interest.