Assessment methodology

Incident Response Readiness Assessment: methodology and sources

This page explains how questions are structured, how the score is calculated, how critical gaps affect the result, and how the assessment should be interpreted.

Version 1.0Last reviewed: 2026-08-2310 questions

Purpose and boundaries

This is an awareness and decision-support assessment. It is not an audit, certification, legal opinion, or formal compliance determination. The score is designed to help leadership identify where deeper review, evidence, or remediation is warranted.

Scoring model

  1. Each question is scored from 0–4. The highest score represents a formalized, implemented, tested, and evidenced state.
  2. Questions are assigned to governance domains. Each domain score is the ratio of earned points to available points in that domain.
  3. Domain scores are combined into the overall score using the domain weights shown below.
  4. “Not sure” answers are treated as an uncertainty signal and may apply a modest uncertainty adjustment.
  5. Some foundational questions have critical rules. If a critical foundation is absent, the overall score can be capped so a high average does not hide material risk.

Domain weights

Roles & command20%

Authority, contacts, and incident command.

Detection & triage20%

Visibility, severity, escalation, and evidence.

Containment & investigation22%

Technical response, evidence preservation, and decisions.

Recovery & continuity20%

Restoration, backups, dependencies, and validation.

Communications & learning18%

Stakeholders, regulatory/customer decisions, exercises, and lessons.

Critical score rules

  • Incident authority and contact paths may fail outside business hours. (maximum score: 55)
  • Recovery capability is not sufficiently validated. (maximum score: 55)

How to use the result

Review the three lowest domains, critical flags, and evidence checklist together. The objective is not to generate a high score; it is to make missing decisions, owners, and evidence visible. When a major customer, audit, regulatory, or incident deadline exists, the self-assessment should be followed by independent validation.

Reference sources