How Culture Powers the People who Drive the Strategy, Governance, and Operational Layers of a DVMS Program

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How Culture Powers the People who Drive the Strategy, Governance, and Operational Layers of a DVMS Program

Rick Lemieux – Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer of the DVMS Institute

Delivering cyber operational resilience in a modern Digital Value Management System (DVMS) environment requires far more than frameworks, controls, or technologies. It demands a deeply embedded cultural foundation that shapes how people think, behave, and make decisions across the strategy, governance, and operations layers of the enterprise.

While the DVMS provides the structure—linking Governance Intent, Operational Capability, and Assurance Evidence—culture drives the energy and alignment that makes this structure work in practice. Without the right cultural environment, even the strongest cybersecurity strategies fail to translate into consistent action, and the most advanced technologies cannot compensate for fragmented collaboration, weak accountability, or poor decision-making. Ultimately, culture is what powers the DVMS and enables organizations to achieve measurable, high-performing, and resilient digital outcomes.

Culture at the Strategic Layer: Shaping Intent, Priorities, and Accountability

At the strategic layer of a DVMS Cyber Operational Resilience program, culture determines whether cybersecurity is treated as a business enabler or as a technical afterthought. Executives and boards set the tone for how cybersecurity integrates into the organization’s strategic mission—defining not only what the organization intends to achieve but how people at every level are expected to behave as they create, protect, and deliver digital value. This cultural stance influences risk appetite, investment decisions, and the degree to which cybersecurity is integrated into strategic planning, rather than being added as an afterthought.

A culture that prioritizes transparency, accountability, and cross-functional collaboration strengthens the strategic effectiveness of the DVMS. For example, when executive leadership consistently communicates that digital trust, resilience, and value protection are fundamental to business success, it creates alignment between business strategy and cyber strategy. This cultural clarity enables CEOs, boards, CISOs, and CROs to work together in defining strategy-risk profiles, shaping Governance Intent, and ensuring strategic direction is grounded in realistic assessments of digital risk.

If culture does not support open dialogue about risk, strategic blind spots form. Teams may under-report vulnerabilities, avoid escalating concerns, or misalign operational realities with executive expectations. The DVMS depends on accurate, evidence-based decision-making, and this is only possible in a culture where truth flows upward without fear. Thus, culture becomes the force that allows strategy to become actionable, risk-aware, and aligned with organizational intent.

Culture at the Governance Layer: Enabling Structure, Oversight, and Assurance

The governance layer translates strategic direction into the policies, standards, structures, and oversight mechanisms that operational teams follow. But governance can only function effectively if culture supports the behaviors required to implement and enforce these structures.

Culture influences how seriously people take governance requirements, how consistently they adhere to policies, and how willingly they participate in assurance activities. A strong culture of integrity, responsibility, and continuous improvement empowers governance leaders—governance officers, compliance professionals, legal counsel, internal audit, and data governance teams—to fulfill their roles effectively. It enables them to establish governance frameworks that are not only documented but also lived.

In a DVMS context, the governance layer relies on cultural attributes such as:

  • Respect for process: Stakeholders understand why governance exists and embrace it as essential to value creation and protection.
  • Shared responsibility: Teams see governance as a collective obligation, not the job of one department.
  • Evidence-driven behavior: People value metrics, assurance evidence, and fact-based decision-making.
  • Adaptability: Policies can evolve because the culture supports learning and change.

 

Where culture is weak, governance becomes performative. People may comply on paper but bypass controls in practice. Assurance evidence becomes superficial, and executives cannot rely on the information they receive. This undermines the DVMS model, where assurance mechanisms are central to verifying that expected outcomes are being achieved.

Conversely, when culture supports governance excellence, the DVMS thrives. Everyone understands their part in the GRAA (Governance, Resilience, Assurance, and Accountability) system, and governance shifts from a compliance burden to a value-enabling capability. This alignment ensures that policies reflect reality, assurance activities provide honest insights, and governance evolves with the business rather than lagging it.

Culture at the Operational Layer: Driving Behavior, Execution, and Resilience

The operational layer is where cyber resilience is truly tested—where analysts monitor networks, engineers build secure architectures, managers make day-to-day risk decisions, and employees at every level play a role in protecting digital assets. In this layer, culture directly influences the outcomes the DVMS aims to achieve because it shapes how individuals behave when no one is watching.

Effective operational resilience depends on cultural characteristics such as:

  • Proactive decision-making: Teams identify and address risks before they become incidents.
  • Psychological safety: Employees feel comfortable reporting concerns, mistakes, or emerging threats.
  • Shared vigilance: Everyone understands they have a role in cybersecurity—not just the technical teams.
  • Continuous learning: Operational teams embrace change, adopt new best practices, and innovate solutions.
  • Cross-functional teamwork: Silos break down, allowing cybersecurity to integrate into operations, development, risk, and business processes.

 

In organizations where culture supports these behaviors, the DVMS operational layer becomes a high-performance engine. The MVC Model’s capabilities—Design, Execute, Change, and Innovate—come to life as people naturally adopt resilient practices and seek opportunities to improve systems. Assurance evidence improves because frontline teams are aligned with governance and willingly contribute to transparent reporting. Incidents decrease, response times improve, and operational resilience becomes a competitive advantage.

Without the right culture, however, operations falter. Teams may ignore procedures, delay reporting issues, or resist changes needed to strengthen security. Even strong technical controls become ineffective when everyday behaviors do not reinforce them.

Culture as the Core Enabler of the DVMS System

Across all layers—strategy, governance, and operations—culture serves as the unifying force that transforms the DVMS into a functioning cyber operational resilience management system. It:

  • Aligns people to Governance Intent
  • Strengthens operational capability
  • Ensures the accuracy of assurance evidence
  • Enables resilience, adaptability, and continuous improvement
  • Promotes accountability and trust
  • Transforms cybersecurity from a siloed function into a shared responsibility

 

The DVMS defines the architecture for Cyber Operational Resilience, but culture is the energy that powers that architecture. It ensures that roles align, processes function, evidence is reliable, and digital value is created, protected, and delivered as intended. In an environment of accelerating digital transformation, evolving cyber threats, and increasing regulatory demands, culture becomes the ultimate determinant of whether a DVMS succeeds or fails.

Conclusion

Culture is not an add-on to the DVMS—it is the foundation that enables the entire system to function. It drives the behaviors that sustain governance, energizes the practices that support operational resilience, and informs the mindset that shapes executive strategy. Without the right culture, organizations cannot achieve the measurable, resilient, and high-performing digital outcomes the DVMS is designed to deliver. However, with an intense, adaptive, and aligned culture, the DVMS becomes a powerful force for digital value creation and protection, enabling organizations to thrive in an increasingly complex digital world.

About the Author

Rick Lemieux
Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer of the DVMS Institute

Rick has 40+ years of passion and experience creating solutions to give organizations a competitive edge in their service markets. In 2015, Rick was identified as one of the top five IT Entrepreneurs in the State of Rhode Island by the TECH 10 awards for developing innovative training and mentoring solutions for boards, senior executives, and operational stakeholders.

DVMS Cyber Resilience Professional Accredited Certification Training

Governing, Assuring, and Accounting for Resilient Digital Value Outcomes In Complex, Fragmented Systems

Explainer Video – Paper vs. Living System Governed by Assurance

Despite abundant frameworks and dashboards, leaders still struggle to see how their digital value streams perform under real-world stress.

Intent, structure, and day-to-day behavior are examined in isolation, creating flat views that hide how decisions and human responses interact in a living digital system.

The result is governance that looks strong on paper but falters in practice, leaving leaders to juggle disconnected controls instead of actively strengthening the resilience of their digital value.

What’s needed is a framework-agnostic overlay system capable of governing, assuring, and accounting for digital value resilience across complex, fragmented systems.

Digital Value Management System® (DVMS)

An Overlay Management System to Govern, Assure, and Account for Resilient Digital Value Outcomes in Complex, Fragmented Systems
Explainer Video – What is a Digital Value Management System (DVMS)

The Digital Value Management System® (DVMS) training programs teach leadership, practitioners, and employees how to integrate fragmented frameworks and systems such as NISTCSF, GRC, ITSM, and AI into a unified, culture-driven governance and assurance system that accounts for the resilience of digital value within a living digital system.

At its core, the DVMS is a simple but powerful integration of:
  • Governance Intent – shared expectations and accountabilities
  • Operational Capabilities – how the digital business actually performs
  • Assurance Evidence – proof that outcomes are achieved and accountable
  • Cultural Learning – to continually fine-tune governance intent and operational capabilities
Underpinning this integration are three distinctive DVMS models

Create, Protect, and Deliver (CPD) – The CPD Model™ is a systems-based model within the DVMS that links strategy-risk and governance to execution in order to create, protect, and deliver digital business value as an integrated, continuously adaptive organizational capability.

3D Knowledge (3DK) – The 3DK Model™ is a systems-thinking framework that maps team knowledge over time (past, present, future), cross-team collaboration, and alignment to strategic intent to ensure that organizational behavior, learning, and execution remain integrated and adaptive in delivering digital business value.

Minimum Viable Capabilities (MVC) – The MVC™ model supports the seven essential, system-level organizational capabilities—Govern, Assure, Plan, Design, Change, Execute, and Innovate—required to reliably create, protect, and deliver digital business value in alignment with strategy-risk intent.

The integration of these models then enables three distinctive digital value management organizational capabilities:

A Governance Overlay that replaces fragmentation with unity. The DVMS provides organizations with a structured way to connect strategy with day-to-day execution. Leaders gain a consistent mechanism to direct, measure, and validate performance—across every system responsible for digital value.

A Behavioral Engine that drives high-trust, high-velocity decision-making. The DVMS embeds decision models and behavioral patterns that help teams think clearly and act confidently, even in uncertain situations. It is engineered to reduce friction, prevent blame-based cultures, and strengthen organizational reliability.

A Learning System that makes culture measurable, adaptable, and scalable. Culture becomes a managed asset—not an abstract concept. The DVMS provides a repeatable way to observe behavior, collect evidence, learn from outcomes, and evolve faster than threats, disruptions, or market shifts.

In summary, A DVMS enables organizations of any size, scale or complexity to:
  • Govern through risk-informed decision-making
  • Sustain digital value Resilience through a proactive and adaptive culture
  • Measure Performance Assurance through evidence-based outcomes
  • Ensure Accountability by making intent, execution, and evidence inseparable

The People and Culture That Power a DVMS

Explainer Video – The Human Engine of DVMS

Delivering the outcomes of a DVMS requires coordinated action across an enterprise’s strategy, governance, and operational layers.

Each of these business layers contains unique roles that, when aligned, enable organizations to ensure the resilience of their digital value across their complex and fragmented digital systems.

Together, these roles create an adaptive, risk-informed, and resilient culture capable of thriving in a complex and chaotic digital business environment. 

Scaling A DVMS Program – Where Do You Start?

Explainer Video – Scaling a DVMS Program

The DVMS FastTrack Model is a phased, iterative approach that helps organizations mature their Digital Value Management System over time, rather than trying to do everything simultaneously.

This approach breaks the DVMS journey into manageable phases of success. It all starts with selecting the first digital service you want to make resilient. Once that service has integrated DVMS at its boundaries, it becomes the blueprint to operationalize DVMS in the remaining digital services

The DVMS training provides an example of how to operationalize the NIST Cybersecurity Framework and ensure its digital value resilience across complex, fragmented systems.

DVMS Program Benefits

Explainer Video – DVMS Organization and Leadership Benefits

DVMS Organizational Benefits

Instead of replacing existing operational frameworks and their management systems, the DVMS elevates them—connecting and contextualizing their data into actionable intelligence that validates performance and exposes the reasons behind unmet outcomes.

By adopting a DVMS, organizations are positioned to:

  • Maintain Operational Stability Amidst Constant Digital Disruption
  • Deliver Digital Value and Trust Across A Digital Ecosystem
  • Satisfy Critical Regulatory and Certification Requirements
  • Leverage Cyber Resilience as a Competitive Advantage

DVMS Leadership Benefits

The Digital Value Management System (DVMS) provides leaders with a unified, evidence-based approach to governing and enhancing their digital enterprise, aligning with regulatory requirements and stakeholder expectations.

For the CEO, the DVMS provides a clear line of sight between digital operations, business performance, and strategic outcomes—turning governance and resilience into enablers of growth and innovation rather than cost centers.

For the Board of Directors, the DVMS provides ongoing assurance that the organization’s digital assets, operations, and ecosystem are governed, protected, and resilient—supported by evidence-based reporting that directly links operational integrity to enterprise value and stakeholder trust.

For the CIO, CRO, CISO, and Auditors: an integrated, adaptive, and culture-driven governance and assurance management system that enhances digital business performance, resilience, trust, and accountability.

The DVMS Certified Training Programs

Explainer Video – The DVMS Training Pathway to Operational Cyber Resilience

The DVMS Institute’s certification training programs and body-of-knowledge publications equip leaders, practitioners, and employees with the skills to govern operational cyber-resilience through an evidence-based system that assures and accounts for digital value outcomes.

Grounded in real-world governance challenges and aligned with NIST CSF 2.0, the DVMS Institute’s training programs teach organizations how to build measurable capability, transparent accountability, and defensible confidence in decision-making.

Through structured learning, applied certification, and authoritative publications, the Institute advances a disciplined, outcome-driven approach to managing digital risk, performance, and resilience as an integrated system.

DVMS Cyber Resilience Awareness Training

The DVMS Cyber Resilience Awareness course and its accompanying body of knowledge publication educate all employees on the fundamentals of digital business, its associated risks, the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, and their role within a shared model of governance, resilience, assurance, and accountability for creating, protecting, and delivering digital value.

This investment fosters a culture that is prepared to operate within a system capable of transforming systemic cyber risks into operational resilience.

DVMS NISTCSF Cyber Resilience Foundation Certification Training

The DVMS NISTCSF Cyber Resilience Foundation certification training course and its accompanying body of knowledge publications provide ITSM, GRC, Cybersecurity, and Business professionals with a detailed understanding of the NIST Cybersecurity Framework and its role in a shared model of governance, resilience, assurance, and accountability for creating, protecting, and delivering digital value.

This investment fosters IT, GRC, Cybersecurity, and Business professionals with the skills to operate within a system that transforms systemic cyber risks into operational resilience.

DVMS Cyber Resilience Practitioner Certification Training

The DVMS Practitioner certification training course and its accompanying body of knowledge publications teach ITSM, GRC, Cybersecurity, and Business practitioners how to elevate investments in ITSM, GRC, Cybersecurity, and AI business systems by integrating them into a unified governance, resilience, assurance, and accountability system designed to proactively identify and mitigate the cyber risks that could disrupt operations, erode resilience, or diminish client trust.

This investment fosters IT, GRC, Cybersecurity, and Business practitioners with the skills to assess, design, implement, operationalize, and continually innovate a Digital Value Management System® program that operationalizes a shared model of governance, resilience, assurance, and accountability for creating, protecting, and delivering digital value.

The Assurance Mandate White Paper Series

Explainer Video –  Why GRAA is the Next Evolution of GRC

The whitepapers below present a clear progression from compliance-driven thinking to a modern system of Governance, Resilience, Assurance, and Accountability (GRAA). Together, they define an evidence-based approach to building and governing resilient digital enterprises.

The Assurance Mandate Paper explains why traditional GRC artifacts offer reassurance, not proof, and challenges boards to demand evidence that value can be created, protected, and delivered under stress.

The Assurance in Action Paper shows how DVMS turns intent into execution by translating outcomes into Minimum Viable Capabilities, aligning frameworks through the Create–Protect–Deliver model, and producing measurable assurance evidence of real performance.

The Governing by Assurance Paper extends this model to policy and regulation, positioning DVMS as a learning overlay that links governance intent, operational capability, and auditable evidence—enabling outcome-based governance and proof of resilience through measurable performance data.

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