Risk and Control Self-Assessment for Operational Loss Prevention Training Course

Course overview

Operational losses frequently arise from known process weaknesses: unclear ownership, undocumented manual workarounds, ineffective reconciliations, poorly designed access controls, or risk assessments that are completed as an annual compliance exercise rather than used to drive remediation. Risk and Control Self-Assessment (RCSA) gives operational risk teams and business managers a structured method for identifying these exposures before they become loss events, audit findings, customer harm, or regulatory breaches. This course focuses on building RCSAs that management can use to make defensible control and investment decisions.

Participants learn to scope an RCSA around a process, legal entity, product, or risk theme; map process steps and hand-offs; identify operational risk events, causes, and impacts; assess inherent and residual risk; evaluate control design and operating effectiveness; and document treatment actions. The course addresses risk and control taxonomies, assessment scales, control libraries, loss-event data, key risk indicators (KRIs), scenario analysis, challenge sessions, and reporting for risk committees. Participants practise distinguishing a control from a procedure, an issue from a risk, and a risk indicator from a performance metric.

Instruction combines worked examples, facilitated calibration discussions, control-testing scenarios, and a running operational-loss case study. Participants build an RCSA pack for a realistic business process, including a process-and-risk map, control assessment, scoring rationale, KRI set, issue log, remediation plan, and committee-ready risk summary. The final day includes an application workshop in which each participant adapts the method to a live or anticipated RCSA in their own organisation.

The course is suited to experienced risk, control, audit, compliance, finance, and operations professionals who need to improve the quality, consistency, and decision value of operational risk assessments.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Scope an RCSA using a defined process boundary, risk taxonomy, and accountable ownership model
• Map end-to-end business processes to identify failure points, hand-offs, systems, and manual interventions
• Formulate operational risk statements that separate event, cause, impact, and affected stakeholder
• Assess inherent and residual risk using calibrated likelihood, impact, velocity, and control-effectiveness criteria
• Evaluate control design and operating effectiveness using a control objective and evidence-based testing approach
• Develop KRIs with thresholds, escalation triggers, data owners, and linkage to identified risks
• Produce a prioritised remediation plan with actions, owners, due dates, dependency analysis, and validation criteria
• Present an RCSA results pack containing risk heat maps, control gaps, loss-data insights, and management recommendations

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Operational Risk Managers — who design, coordinate, or challenge RCSA programmes across business units
• Risk and Control Officers — who maintain risk registers, control libraries, and remediation tracking
• Internal Auditors — who assess management control frameworks and need stronger risk-assessment evidence
• Business Process Owners — who are accountable for operational processes and control performance
• Compliance Managers — who need to connect regulatory obligations to operational risks and controls
• Finance Control and Assurance Professionals — who oversee reconciliations, reporting controls, and loss prevention

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have practical exposure to operational processes, internal controls, audit, compliance, finance operations, or enterprise risk management. They should understand basic concepts such as risk appetite, risk registers, control ownership, incidents, issues, and corrective actions. Familiarity with spreadsheets is assumed, as participants work with assessment templates, scoring matrices, and KRI data in Microsoft Excel. Prior experience of running an RCSA is helpful but not essential. Statistical modelling, coding, specialist GRC-system administration, and prior certification in ISO 31000 or COSO are not required.

Training methodology

The course uses short instructor-led method sessions followed by structured application to a running payments-operations loss case. Participants work in groups to map a process, draft risk statements, rate inherent and residual exposure, challenge control evidence, and design KRIs and action plans. The instructor demonstrates practical Excel-based RCSA templates and examples from GRC platforms, while peer calibration exercises expose differences in scoring judgement. Each day closes with a reviewed working-paper output, culminating in an individual application plan for a current RCSA cycle or control issue.

Course outline

Day 1: RCSA foundations and assessment scope

• Operational loss event categories and causal analysis
• RCSA purpose within the three-lines model
• Process, entity, product, and thematic RCSA scoping
• Risk appetite, tolerance, and escalation boundaries
• Risk taxonomy design and risk-register architecture
• Roles of process owners, control owners, facilitators, and challengers
• RCSA governance calendar, approval routes, and evidence standards

Workshop: Participants define the scope, stakeholders, risk taxonomy references, and governance plan for an RCSA of a payments-operations process.

Day 2: Process mapping and risk identification

• SIPOC and swimlane process-mapping techniques
• Identifying hand-offs, manual workarounds, and system dependencies
• Risk-event, cause, impact, and consequence statement structure
• Using internal loss-event data to identify recurring exposures
• Near misses, customer complaints, audit findings, and issue data
• Root-cause techniques using five whys and causal factor analysis
• Risk-and-control matrix construction

Workshop: Participants produce a swimlane process map and a risk-and-control matrix identifying failure modes in the case-study payment workflow.

Day 3: Control assessment and residual risk scoring

• Control objectives, control activities, and control ownership
• Preventive, detective, corrective, and compensating controls
• Control design-effectiveness assessment criteria
• Operating-effectiveness evidence and sample-based testing
• Inherent risk scoring using likelihood and impact scales
• Residual risk calculation and score-calibration workshops
• Control gaps, control rationalisation, and residual-risk acceptance

Workshop: Participants assess five controls, document supporting evidence, score inherent and residual risk, and prepare a calibration rationale.

Day 4: KRIs, scenarios, and treatment actions

• KRI selection criteria and causal linkage to risk events
• Thresholds, limits, triggers, and traffic-light status design
• Distinguishing KRIs from KPIs and key control indicators
• Scenario analysis for low-frequency, high-impact losses
• Risk treatment options: mitigate, transfer, avoid, and accept
• Issue prioritisation using impact, urgency, dependency, and cost
• Remediation action plans and closure-validation evidence

Workshop: Participants design a KRI dashboard and prioritised remediation plan for the highest residual risks in the case study.

Day 5: Challenge, reporting, and implementation

• First-line self-assessment and second-line challenge protocols
• Quality assurance checks for RCSA completeness and consistency
• Risk heat maps, control-gap reporting, and risk narratives
• Management information for operational risk committees
• Linking RCSA outputs to internal audit plans and assurance testing
• Using Microsoft Excel, ServiceNow GRC, and RSA Archer RCSA workflows
• Annual refresh cycles, event-driven reassessments, and continuous monitoring

Workshop: Participants present a committee-ready RCSA pack and complete an implementation plan for applying the method to their own business area.

Tools & standards covered

Microsoft Excel, ServiceNow GRC, RSA Archer, ISO 31000

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions