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      The speed with which these developments have transpired in the federal environment makes this book especially timely for several reasons:

      1. There is a growing demand for knowledge and understanding of ERM and its application to public sector organizations.

      2. There is a lack of available information focused on the practice of ERM and how it benefits public sector organizations.

      3. A solid blueprint for utilizing ERM in public sector organizations, namely federal agencies, is sorely needed to guide those who champion risk management practice.

      4. There is no single resource guide available that summarizes information about ERM and risk management in general for the government workforce.

      Finally, the Obama administration’s focus on accountability and transparency has also prompted a renewed focus on risk and controls. This publication aims to satisfy these needs.

      In recent years, the federal government has been on the receiving end of new legislation and regulations that require it to better manage risk and improve controls in discrete areas. Generally, to meet the requirements of each of these new mandates, agencies have engaged in many compliance-driven activities. This stove-piped approach to compliance is costly and does not optimize value. This book explores how federal C-suite executives, as well as financial and operational managers, can help guide their agencies to take a more holistic approach to risk management by implementing an ERM system. This approach can help reduce the total cost of compliance by proactively mitigating risk, while helping agencies achieve greater value from their risk management activities.

      Although the current focus on risk management for most federal CFOs and financial managers stems from the revised OMB Circular A-123, these are only two requirements among the many that federal agencies must address. Agencies are also required to report their results in implementing the Federal Managers’ Financial Integrity Act (FMFIA) of 1982, the Improper Payments Information Act (IPIA) of 2002, and the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) of 2002, among others. Virtually all of these requirements are ultimately geared toward one objective – improved risk management – so an agency’s response to risk provides reasonable assurance that the organization will achieve its strategic objectives.

      This dramatic increase in compliance requirements, coupled with the realization that compliance cannot be effectively achieved just by having discrete compliance programs in various business units, now makes it critical for organizations to move toward an enterprise-wide risk management approach. Holistic ERM starts with a focus on possible events and their classification into opportunities and risks.

      Keeping track of these possible events requires good data and data governance managed at the enterprise level. It also requires a taxonomy or classification scheme of the most important risks to the entity and a common language for understanding those risks. Improved data management allows the enterprise to take advantage of modern analytical methods to quantify the impact of risk. Data analysis also enables the enterprise to gain an overall view of current risk as well as trends and potential future risks.

      It’s clear that implementing an ERM approach makes sense and yields benefits to an organization. It is my hope that federal executives will find this book useful to them as an introduction and guide to enterprise risk management.

      STATE OF RISK MANAGEMENT IN GOVERNMENT

      At a September 2011 annual summit on Federal Enterprise Risk Management, J. Christopher Mihm, managing director for strategic issues at the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), summarized the state of risk management in the federal government and a path for moving forward (note: “Recent Risk Events” is reproduced at the end of this introduction):

      • Risks can emerge more quickly;

      • Greater transparency about risk is needed;

      • Public knowledge of risk occurs more quickly; and

      • There are higher expectations that risk will be addressed more quickly

      To help answer that question and to realize the true potential of risk management in government, Chris Mihm cited several additional actions that must be taken.24

      First, there must be ongoing momentum and commitment to “continue to expand the discipline across programs” and at an enterprise level. Too often, “Federal managers take massive risks every day but too often do not consider and manage them as such.” Without the proper level of awareness, managers will not properly identify and manage risk effectively.

      Second, there must be internal and external commitment to “help managers understand and calculate the risk inherent in the status quo.” Anecdotal observations

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