Adviser — Cyber Resilience and Incident Readiness

Test the organisation’s ability to act under uncertainty

The adviser will assess incident readiness in a service environment where disruption has consequences beyond technology downtime. The assignment focuses on recovery, decision-making and coordination, with technical and operational evidence considered together.

Readiness assessment

Review critical-service dependencies, response roles, recovery plans and supplier commitments. Examine whether contact arrangements, decision authority and information flows work outside normal hours. Distinguish a documented plan from a capability that has been exercised and improved.

Exercise and improvement responsibilities

Design realistic discussion-based exercises with agreed objectives, involving leadership and relevant service teams. Test decisions about service continuity, communication, restoration priorities and uncertain information. Record gaps without turning the exercise into a performance contest, then recommend a prioritised improvement plan with accountable owners.

Exercise findings should distinguish missing information, unclear authority and unavailable capability because each requires a different response. The adviser should ask participants to identify the evidence they would need before restoring a service or changing continuity arrangements. Include external-provider assumptions where they materially affect the scenario. The final recommendations should specify how each gap will be retested, ensuring that a revised plan or contact list is not automatically treated as proof that the underlying readiness problem has been resolved.

What the engagement should leave

The outcome should include tested assumptions, clarified decision rights and a manageable remediation programme. The adviser does not assume ongoing incident command or certify that all risk has been removed. Candidates should discuss a readiness test that revealed a dependency outside the IT team’s control. Provider relationships and concurrent roles require conflict screening.