By name: compliance-risk description: "Master compliance and risk domain - understand regulatory requirements, data privacy, security risks, legal constraints, and business continuity. Use for identifying compliance needs, assessing risks, and building risk mitigation plans." allowed-tools: Write metadata: version: "2.0" claude-code: context: fork agent: Explore user-invocable: true
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
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."
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)
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)
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
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
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)
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
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
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)
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
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?"
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