A Practical, Optimised Guide to ISO 31000 Risk Management Implementation with AvISO and ISOvA

(Clause 4 – Context of the Organisation)

What Clause 4 Covers
Organisations must:
• Understand internal and external issues that influence risk management
• Identify stakeholders and their risk-related expectations
• Define the scope of the risk management system
• Establish and document critical processes that influence risk

How to
• Conduct a PESTLE and SWOT analysis to assess external and internal risk drivers
• Identify who depends on your risk management outcomes — such as investors, regulators, or customers
• Define a scope statement that includes enterprise, project, compliance, or operational risk coverage
• Establish key interfaces with other management systems (e.g. QMS, ISMS, EMS)

Example
A manufacturing group scopes its risk management framework across environmental compliance, supplier performance, and customer satisfaction, integrating it with ISO 9001 and ISO 14001.

Risks if Overlooked
• Misaligned risk appetite between teams or leadership
• Overly narrow scope missing reputational or stakeholder risks
• Fragmented or duplicated risk controls across departments

How AvISO and ISOvA Help
• Context and stakeholder analysis workshops
• Support defining risk scopes and strategic frameworks
• Risk landscape templates and configurable risk libraries within ISOvA

(Clause 5 – Leadership)

What Clause 5 Covers
Organisations must:
• Demonstrate leadership support for a risk-based culture
• Define responsibilities and decision-making roles related to risk
• Align the risk approach with strategic goals

How to
• Develop a leadership-approved risk management policy
• Assign roles and escalation pathways for operational, tactical, and strategic risk
• Build risk ownership into key job descriptions and objectives
• Establish a cross-functional risk steering group or risk owner network

Example
A fintech company assigns a member of the executive team as Risk Champion and embeds risk review items into monthly leadership meetings.

Risks if Overlooked
• Top-down risk processes with limited engagement from operational teams
• Unclear escalation paths for emerging or high-priority risks
• Poor accountability for overdue mitigation actions

How AvISO and ISOvA Help
• Leadership engagement workshops and risk policy templates
• Role-mapping tools and responsibility matrix development
• Risk owner assignments and performance visibility via ISOvA dashboards

(Clause 6 – Planning)

What Clause 6 Covers
Organisations must:
• Identify, evaluate, and treat risks and opportunities
• Plan mitigation actions and monitoring approaches
• Define objectives and how to achieve them

How to
• Establish a central risk register using ISO 31000’s risk identification techniques (e.g. interviews, checklists, root cause reviews)
• Define consistent likelihood and impact criteria for scoring risks
• Set SMART objectives for risk reduction, such as lowering cyber risk or improving contractor reliability
• Link planned actions to responsible owners, deadlines, and review cycles

Example
A public services provider uses scenario-based risk workshops to identify gaps in continuity planning and sets a six-month objective to close all critical dependencies.

Risks if Overlooked
• Inconsistent or subjective risk scoring
• Missing mitigation actions or unassigned owners
• Focused only on operational risk, ignoring strategic threats

How AvISO and ISOvA Help
• Risk register creation support and scoring model guidance
• Automated risk scoring, review reminders, and status updates in ISOvA
• Templates for control effectiveness reviews and opportunity assessments

(Clause 7 – Support)

What Clause 7 Covers
Organisations must:
• Allocate resources, skills, and tools for risk management
• Maintain risk awareness and competence
• Control risk-related documentation and communications

How to
• Deliver awareness training on risk appetite, mitigation planning, and control documentation
• Provide templates and registers for consistency
• Track communications to stakeholders such as audit committees or supply chain partners
• Monitor access and updates to critical risk-related documents

Example
A healthcare provider includes risk refresher training in all new staff onboarding and provides simple guides for completing incident and risk logs.

Risks if Overlooked
• Skills gaps in assessing or responding to risks
• Outdated registers or undocumented controls
• Poor visibility of critical risks across teams

How AvISO and ISOvA Help
• Custom training on ISO 31000 principles and applications
• Document templates, central control libraries, and audit trails in ISOvA
• Registers for communication logs and stakeholder updates

(Clause 8 – Operation)

What Clause 8 Covers
Organisations must:
• Implement processes to identify, evaluate, treat, and monitor risks
• Manage changes that affect risk profiles
• Ensure alignment with planned objectives and controls

How to
• Apply ISO 31000's risk treatment options (avoidance, mitigation, transfer, acceptance)
• Ensure every new project or change is subject to a risk review
• Maintain traceability of decisions related to risk acceptance or mitigation failure
• Track the status of risk treatment actions

Example
An engineering firm adds a mandatory risk review stage to its project lifecycle for cost, safety, and regulatory concerns.

Risks if Overlooked
• Static risk registers that don’t reflect changing conditions
• Risk mitigation actions not completed
• Missed early signs of failure or deviation from expected outcomes

How AvISO and ISOvA Help
• Operational integration support and change risk reviews
• Real-time action tracking and escalation notifications in ISOvA
• Templates for risk decision logging and audit-readiness

(Clause 9 – Performance Evaluation)

What Clause 9 Covers
Organisations must:
• Monitor and evaluate risk management performance
• Conduct internal audits and management reviews
• Adjust based on indicators and stakeholder needs

How to
• Define KPIs related to risk management (e.g. control effectiveness, overdue actions, audit findings)
• Schedule periodic reviews of high-risk items and critical controls
• Conduct internal audits on risk process compliance and effectiveness
• Include risk performance in strategic and board-level reviews

Example
An infrastructure provider includes trend analysis of control failures in its quarterly risk management dashboard shared with directors.

Risks if Overlooked
• Missed deteriorating controls or changes in risk exposure
• Audit findings not translated into improvements
• Risk management seen as a ‘tick-box’ function

How AvISO and ISOvA Help
• Internal audit support and risk management KPI definition
• Dynamic dashboards and scheduled reports in ISOvA
• Templates for management review reports and audit tracking

(Clause 10 – Improvement)

What Clause 10 Covers
Organisations must:
• Address nonconformities or risk failures
• Learn from incidents and near-misses
• Improve risk management tools, documentation, and culture

How to
• Log and investigate risk-related incidents, including control failures
• Identify systemic root causes and plan corrective actions
• Periodically review risk frameworks and update tools
• Share lessons learned across teams

Example
A logistics company reviews a near-miss in its driver safety controls, leading to updated procedures and retraining of staff.

Risks if Overlooked
• Repeat issues or worsening risk outcomes
• Loss of stakeholder confidence
• Static risk frameworks that don’t evolve with business change

How AvISO and ISOvA Help
• Corrective action planning and improvement tracking tools
• Root cause analysis workshops
• Post-incident learning templates and improvement logs