Analyzing Results
Only after analyzing the results can you provide insights and recommendations that will be valuable to senior decision-makers.
First you gather all your data, organize it, and study it carefully.
The second step in your analysis is to determine the business impact of those facts.
The third step is to figure out the now what? Senior decision makers (especially non-technical ones) almost always prefer being informed what is the right security course of action. Your job is to show that you have considered the options and have sound recommendations that address the broader organizational needs.
The goal of this analysis process is to move logically from facts to actionable information.
Writing Technical Reports
A good technical report tells a story that is interesting and compelling for its intended audience.
The following are key elements of a good technical audit report:
- Executive Summary We’ll get into the weeds of this in the next section, but you should always consider that some readers may not be able to devote more than a few minutes to your report. Preface it with a hard-hitting summary of key take-aways.
- Background Explain why you conducted the experiment/test/assessment/audit in the first place. Describe the scope of the event, which should be tied to the reason for doing it in the first place. This is a good place to list any relevant references such as policies, industry standards, regulations, or statutes.
- Methodology As most of us learned in our science classes, experiments (and audits) must be repeatable. Describe the process by which you conducted the study. This is also a good section in which to list the personnel who participated, dates, times, locations, and any parts of the system that were excluded (and why).
- Findings You should group your findings to make them easier to search and read for your audience. If the readers are mostly senior managers, you may want to group your findings by business impact. Technologists may prefer groupings by class of system. Each finding should include the answer to “so what?” from your analysis.
- Recommendations This section should mirror the organization of your Findings and provide the “now what?” from your analysis. This is the actionable part of the report, so you should make it compelling. When writing it, you should consider how each key reader will react to your recommendations. For instance, if you know the CFO is reluctant to make new capital investments, then you could frame expensive recommendations in terms of operational costs instead.
- Appendices You should include as much raw data as possible, but you certainly want to include enough to justify your recommendations. Pay attention to how you organize the appendices so that readers can easily find whatever data they may be looking for.
