LEADING INDICATORS FOR SECURITY ORGANIZATIONS

Managers are always in search of key performance indicators to gauge the present performance of their business, to obtain insight into possible future outcomes, and to identify changes in strategy or tactics that might improve organizational competiveness and performance. So-called lagging indicators, such as revenue, cost, and profit, can provide a good measure of current performance and trending those data can provide some insights into the future. Such lagging indicators tend to be measurable and precise and therefore enjoy a favored place in corporate planning and performance analysis. Leading indicators, on the other hand, are indicators of something that might happen and thus they are, almost by definition, imprecise indicators of the future performance. Nonetheless, businesses have found that an organizational analysis system that includes leading indicators specific to the organization’s business line leads to enhanced organizational success.Security organizations, whether regulatory or operational, have a similar need to evaluate performance and to assess the likelihood of continued success. While lagging indicators such as a periodic review of the number and severity of security incidents, number of assets not found in their assigned location, comparison of costs versus budget, number of positions vacant, etc. have often been monitored to assess the health of a security system, such metrics may not provide a sufficient indicator of future success. In this paper, some leading indicators of security performance are proposed and some opportunities for gathering data to evaluate each are presented.