Digital Operational Resilience Act

Make DORA operational, not episodic

Shift from pillar-by-pillar delivery to a continuously effective operating model with clear ownership, decision thresholds, and evidence as a by-product of execution.
  • Reduce late-stage fixes by making decision thresholds and ownership explicit
  • Keep the RoI and dependency evidence accurate and up to date
  • Make testing and incident learning measurable, not narrative
DORA causality stack: proportionality, strategy, governance and risk decisions, and execution evidence.
A causality view of DORA delivery: lower layers enable the layers above.

Sustainable DORA is continuous resilience

The five pillars helped to reach the deadline. Sustainability requires an operating model that remains effective.

Sustainable DORA connects proportionality, strategy, governance decisions, and execution evidence into one operating model that remains effective under change and disruption.

DORA in five pillars

ICT risk management
Governance, controls, and risk management that stay effective under change.
Incident management and reporting
Detection, classification, response, and learning that improves capability, not only reporting.
Resilience testing
Testing that probes real capability and produces measurable remediation, not narrative assurance.
ICT third-party risk management
Decision-ready visibility across providers, including concentration and exit readiness.
Information sharing
Actionable, proportionate sharing that improves defences and response coordination.

Building an operating model

Lower layers enable the layers above. Without the foundations, execution becomes escalations and evidence rebuilds.

Layer 1: Proportionality and calibration

Define how thresholds, testing depth, evidence expectations, and escalation paths scale with criticality and impact.

  • Keep effort proportionate to impact and criticality
  • Avoid bureaucracy by calibrating governance rather than applying one global standard

More on this: Security Governance & Operating Models.

Layer 2: Cyber resilience strategy

Clarify what must remain reliable and where investment should be concentrated.

  • Anchor priorities in business criticality and realistic disruption scenarios
  • Connect strategy to dependency exposure and operational fragility

More on this: Operational & Cyber Resilience.

Layer 3: Governance and risk decisions

Make intent actionable: ownership, KRIs, thresholds, escalation, and tested capability.

  • Translate policy intent into decisions and accountability
  • Use decision-grade indicators to steer risk, not just review it

More on this: Security Governance & Operating Models.

Layer 4: Execution and evidence

Make the operating model observable in day-to-day execution and evidence.

  • Incident management that produces learning
  • RoI maintained as a dependency dataset

More on this: Third-Party Oversight, Resilience Engineering, and Resilience Transformation & Delivery.

The Register of Information (RoI)

Treating the RoI as a reporting output creates recurring data quality, ownership, and validation failures.

System of record
Maintain the RoI as a live dependency dataset with clear ownership, not an annual deliverable.
Change processes
Define how RoI-relevant changes are captured and validated as part of normal delivery and procurement.
Quality and validation
Prevent reconciliation issues by validating completeness, criticality, and dependency relationships continuously.

A practical starting point

Validate the DORA Register of Information for structural issues early, before submission.

The DORA RoI Health Check is a browser-based validation tool. All data stays in the browser and results are available instantly.

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Is your DORA programme becoming a reporting project?

If delivery is stuck in coordination and late-stage fixes, DORA becomes episodic. This engagement focuses on an operating model that stays continuously effective.