Compliance Risk

Compliance & Risk for BA

Missing compliance costs way more than building it right.

What is Compliance & Risk Domain Knowledge?

Definition: Understanding regulatory, legal, and business risks - requirements that must be met, constraints that limit options, and potential failures that must be mitigated.

Why it matters:

• Missed compliance: Fines ($1M+), legal liability, shut-down risk
• Security failures: Customer data breach, reputation damage, legal liability
• Business continuity: System down = revenue/operations stop
• Risk blindness: Unknown risks hit you (data loss, fraud, security)
• Late-stage discovery: Building compliance after launch is 10x harder/expensive

When to Use:

• ✅ Understanding regulatory requirements
• ✅ Assessing compliance impact on design
• ✅ Identifying security risks
• ✅ Planning risk mitigation
• ✅ Building business continuity plans

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5 Core Risk & Compliance Concepts

1. Regulatory Requirements by Industry

Different industries have dramatically different requirements.

HEALTHCARE (HIPAA):
Requirements:
- Patient data must be encrypted in transit and at rest
- Access logging (who accessed what, when)
- Audit trails for compliance
- Business associate agreements with vendors
- Annual compliance training for all staff
Impact on design:
- Complex encryption architecture
- Detailed audit logging (impacts performance)
- Vendor vetting required
Cost: 20-30% of project

FINANCE (PCI-DSS):
Requirements:
- Credit card data must be encrypted
- Quarterly security assessments
- Intrusion detection systems
- Network segmentation
- Restricted employee access
Impact on design:
- Cannot store card data (use payment processors)
- Security infrastructure complex
Cost: 15-25% of project

E-COMMERCE (GDPR/CCPA):
Requirements:
- User consent for data collection
- Right to access/delete data
- Data breach notification (72 hours)
- Privacy policy
Impact on design:
- Consent management system
- Data export functionality
- Data deletion functionality
Cost: 10-20% of project

Important: Compliance requirements vary by jurisdiction, industry, data type. Don't assume "everyone needs same rules."

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2. Data Privacy & Security

Every company collecting data needs this.

CONFIDENTIALITY (Keep data secret):
├─ Encryption in transit (HTTPS, TLS)
├─ Encryption at rest (database encryption)
├─ Access controls (who can see what)
└─ Security audits

INTEGRITY (Keep data accurate):
├─ Checksums/hashing
├─ Write-once storage for critical data
├─ Version control
└─ Audit trails (who changed what)

AVAILABILITY (Keep data accessible):
├─ Backups (if lost, can recover)
├─ Redundancy (if one server fails, others work)
├─ Disaster recovery plan
└─ Regular testing of recovery

PRIVACY (User controls over their data):
├─ Consent (ask before collecting)
├─ Transparency (explain what you do)
├─ Access (let users see their data)
└─ Deletion (let users delete their data)

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3. Risk Categories: What Can Go Wrong?

TECHNICAL RISKS:
├─ System outage (performance, scalability failure)
├─ Data loss (corruption, deletion, backup failure)
├─ Security breach (hacked, stolen data)
├─ Integration failure (external system down)
└─ Performance degradation (slow response times)

OPERATIONAL RISKS:
├─ Key person dependency (one engineer knows critical system)
├─ Process failures (missing deployment steps)
├─ Vendor dependency (vendor shuts down, changes pricing)
├─ Resource constraints (not enough engineers)
└─ Knowledge loss (people leave, knowledge walks out)

BUSINESS RISKS:
├─ Market risk (customer demand disappears)
├─ Competitive risk (better product from competitor)
├─ Financial risk (budget overruns, revenue shortfall)
├─ Reputational risk (bad PR, loss of trust)
└─ Regulatory risk (new law, violation fine)

LEGAL RISKS:
├─ Liability (sued for damages)
├─ Intellectual property (patent, copyright issues)
├─ Contract violation (breach terms with customer)
└─ Employee/labor (employment law violation)

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4. Risk Assessment: Probability × Impact

Not all risks matter equally.

Risk Matrix:

                HIGH IMPACT
                     |
        ┌──────────────┼──────────────┐
        │              │              │
  HIGH  │   Monitor    │   Mitigate   │
  PROB  │   Closely    │   Actively   │
        │              │              │
        ├──────────────┼──────────────┤
        │              │              │
  MEDIUM│   Plan For   │   Monitor    │
  PROB  │   Possibility│   (May Need  │
        │              │   Action)    │
        ├──────────────┼──────────────┤
        │              │              │
  LOW   │   Accept     │   Plan For   │
  PROB  │   (Unlikely) │   (If Occurs)│
        │              │              │
        └──────────────┼──────────────┘
                LOW IMPACT

Mitigate = High probability × High impact
         = Design to prevent, or reduce impact

Monitor = Medium/Low probability × High impact
        = Plan response if it happens

Accept = Low probability × Low impact
       = Not worth spending resources on

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5. Mitigation Strategies: What Do We Do?

Four ways to deal with risk:

AVOID: Don't do the risky thing
├─ Example: Security risk from user-uploaded files
├─ Mitigation: Don't allow file uploads
├─ Pro: Eliminates risk
├─ Con: May eliminate feature customers want

REDUCE: Do it but make it safer
├─ Example: Data loss risk from single database
├─ Mitigation: Database replication + backups
├─ Pro: Can still offer feature
├─ Con: Higher cost, more complexity

ACCEPT: Do it knowing risk, have plan if it happens
├─ Example: Key person dependency on one engineer
├─ Mitigation: Cross-training, documentation
├─ Pro: Allows proceeding with some risk
├─ Con: Requires response plan if risk occurs

TRANSFER: Pay someone else to take the risk
├─ Example: Security/compliance risk
├─ Mitigation: Buy cyber insurance, use vendor who handles it
├─ Pro: Risk transferred to specialized party
├─ Con: Ongoing cost

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Common Risk Mitigations

Technical Risks

RISK: Data loss
Mitigation:
- Automated daily backups
- Backup to different region
- Monthly recovery test
- Encryption for backups

RISK: System outage
Mitigation:
- Load balancing (traffic to multiple servers)
- Auto-scaling (add capacity when needed)
- Health monitoring (detect problems fast)
- Incident response plan (know what to do if down)

RISK: Security breach
Mitigation:
- Penetration testing (find vulnerabilities before attackers)
- Security team
- Intrusion detection system
- Data encryption
- Bug bounty program (pay people to find issues)

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Operational Risks

RISK: Key person dependency
Mitigation:
- Cross-training team members
- Documentation of critical systems
- Knowledge sharing sessions
- Succession planning

RISK: Vendor lock-in
Mitigation:
- Use industry standards
- Don't depend on vendor-specific features
- Regular data export capability
- Backup vendor options identified

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Business Risks

RISK: Market shift/demand disappears
Mitigation:
- Stay close to customers
- Regular market research
- Multiple product lines (don't depend on one feature)
- Pivot capability built in (can shift to new opportunity)

RISK: Competitive threat
Mitigation:
- Continuous innovation
- Strong customer relationships
- Sustainable differentiation
- Market monitoring

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Compliance by Role

BA responsibility:

• [ ] Identify what compliance applies to your project
• [ ] Work with legal/security on requirements
• [ ] Incorporate into requirements & design
• [ ] Plan testing for compliance
• [ ] Document compliance approach

NOT BA responsibility (but coordinate with):

• [ ] Detailed security architecture (Security team)
• [ ] Legal contracts (Legal team)
• [ ] Audit/certification (Compliance officer)
• [ ] Data governance (Information security)

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Tools & Templates

• 📋 Risk Register Template: assets/risk-register-template.md
• 📋 Risk Assessment Matrix: assets/risk-matrix-template.md
• 📋 Mitigation Plan Template: assets/mitigation-plan-template.md
• 📋 Compliance Checklist: assets/compliance-checklist-template.md
• 📋 Security Requirements Worksheet: assets/security-requirements-template.md

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Usage Examples

/compliance-risk "healthcare" "What HIPAA requirements affect our product?"
/compliance-risk "data-privacy" "How do we design for GDPR compliance?"
/compliance-risk "security-risk" "What are the top security risks we should mitigate?"

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BA Standards & References

Based on:

• Risk Management: ISO 31000 standard
• Information Security: ISO 27001
• Data Privacy: GDPR, CCPA, privacy frameworks
• Compliance: Industry-specific requirements (HIPAA, PCI-DSS, SOC 2)
• Business Continuity: Disaster recovery, operational resilience

Detailed Frameworks:

• 📚 references/risk-assessment.md - Identifying and assessing risks
• 📚 references/mitigation-strategies.md - Four approaches to risk: avoid, reduce, accept, transfer
• 📚 references/compliance-requirements.md - Industry-specific requirements
• 📚 references/security-architecture.md - Technical security controls
• 📚 references/business-continuity.md - Disaster recovery and continuity planning

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: GiangGiangTran
• Source: GiangGiangTran/ba-skills
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.