GV.OC-05: Outcomes, capabilities, and services that the organization depends on are understood and communicated

GV.OC-05 requires you to identify the business outcomes, capabilities, and services your organization depends on, document those dependencies (including third parties and supporting technology), and communicate them to decision-makers so risk, resilience, and cybersecurity priorities align to what the business actually must deliver. This is an operational dependency map with a communication cadence, not a one-time inventory.

Key takeaways:

• Build and maintain a dependency map that ties critical outcomes and services to people, process, technology, data, facilities, and third parties.
• Assign owners and a communication rhythm so changes in dependencies trigger risk review, not surprise outages.
• Retain evidence that the map is current and used in governance (risk decisions, incident response, resilience planning).

The gv.oc-05: outcomes, capabilities, and services that the organization depends on are understood and communicated requirement is about operational clarity. If you cannot explain what the business must deliver and what it relies on to deliver it, you will miss material cybersecurity and resilience risks: unmanaged single points of failure, shadow dependencies, fragile third-party services, and recovery plans that do not match real operations.

For a Compliance Officer, CCO, or GRC lead, GV.OC-05 becomes actionable when you treat it as a governed dataset plus a repeatable communication mechanism. The dataset is your dependency map: business outcomes and services, their supporting applications and infrastructure, the data they process, key internal teams, and the third parties that make them work. The communication mechanism is how that dependency map is shared, reviewed, and used to make decisions (risk acceptance, control investment, incident prioritization, and continuity planning).

NIST CSF 2.0 states the requirement at a high level; your job is to translate it into: (1) a defined scope, (2) named owners, (3) a standard mapping method, and (4) evidence that leaders received and acted on the information ¹.

Regulatory text

Excerpt (GV.OC-05): “Outcomes, capabilities, and services that the organization depends on are understood and communicated” ².

Operator interpretation: you must (a) identify and document the outcomes/capabilities/services the organization relies on, (b) understand what each depends on (internal and third party), and (c) communicate that understanding to relevant stakeholders so governance decisions reflect those dependencies ¹.

Plain-English interpretation (what this means in practice)

• “Outcomes” are what the business must achieve (e.g., “process customer payments,” “ship orders,” “deliver patient care”).
• “Capabilities” are how the business achieves outcomes (e.g., “identity and access management,” “customer support operations,” “fraud detection”).
• “Services” are the consumable business or technology services delivered internally or externally (e.g., “e-commerce checkout,” “HR payroll,” “SaaS CRM availability”).

You meet GV.OC-05 when you can answer, quickly and consistently:

1. What services matter most to the organization?
2. What do they depend on (apps, infrastructure, data, third parties, people, facilities)?
3. Who needs this information, and how do they receive it?
4. How do changes get captured, reviewed, and communicated?

Who it applies to

Entity scope: any organization running a cybersecurity program that uses NIST CSF 2.0 as a framework or mapping target ¹.

Operational scope (where it bites):

• Organizations with material third-party reliance (cloud providers, SaaS, MSP/MSSP, payment processors, call centers, critical suppliers).
• Complex application estates with shared platforms (IAM, logging, CI/CD, data warehouses) that create hidden coupling.
• Regulated or uptime-sensitive services where outages or data integrity issues trigger customer harm, safety impact, contractual penalties, or reporting.

Functions typically involved:

• Business owners for critical services (revenue, operations, customer support)
• Technology owners (application, infrastructure, security)
• Third-party risk management and procurement
• Business continuity/disaster recovery
• Compliance/GRC to enforce governance and evidence

What you actually need to do (step-by-step)

Step 1: Define scope and “criticality” rules

Create a short scoping statement: which business units, geographies, and service types are in scope for mapping now, and what qualifies as “critical” for initial coverage. Avoid boiling the ocean. Start with services that would cause major operational disruption if unavailable.

Deliverable: Dependency Mapping Standard (1–2 pages) that defines:

• Terms (outcome/capability/service; dependency categories)
• Criticality criteria
• Required metadata fields
• Update triggers and review cadence
• Approval and ownership model

Step 2: Build a minimum viable service catalog

You need a list of services before you can map dependencies. If you already have an ITSM service catalog, validate it reflects real business services, not just technical components.

Minimum fields to capture:

• Service name and description (business-readable)
• Service owner (business) and service manager (IT)
• Primary customers/users
• Data types handled (high level)
• Operational commitments (internal SLO/SLA if you have them)
• Related policies/standards (where applicable)

Tip: Write service descriptions in plain language a non-technical exec can understand.

Step 3: Map dependencies for each critical service

For each in-scope service, map dependencies across six categories. This keeps teams from fixating only on applications.

Dependency category	Examples of what to capture	Evidence you’ll later want
People/roles	On-call team, SME coverage, key person risk	On-call roster, escalation paths
Process	Manual steps, approvals, runbooks, batch jobs	Runbooks, SOPs, job schedules
Technology	Apps, APIs, platforms, identity, logging	Architecture diagrams, CMDB links
Data	Source systems, key datasets, integrity controls	Data flow diagram, backups, retention
Facilities	Sites, contact centers, warehouses	Site dependency notes, alternatives
Third parties	SaaS, cloud, MSP, processors, suppliers	Third-party inventory, contracts, SLAs

This is where GV.OC-05 becomes operational. Your map must show what breaks when a dependency breaks.

Step 4: Identify and record “concentration risk” and single points of failure

As you map, flag:

• One service supporting many critical services (shared platform risk)
• One third party supporting a core business outcome (outsourced critical dependency)
• One region/site supporting a global service (geographic concentration)
• One identity/logging/control plane that everything relies on (security dependency)

Deliverable: Dependency Risk Register (can be a view of your GRC tool) with owners and treatment options.

Step 5: Establish communication paths and governance hooks

GV.OC-05 explicitly requires dependencies be understood and communicated ¹. Treat communication as a control with defined audiences and triggers.

Minimum communication design:

• Audience 1: Executive leadership / risk committee
  Receive a summary of critical services, top shared dependencies, top third-party dependencies, and open concentration risks.
• Audience 2: Operational owners (service owners, IT, security)
  Receive the detailed dependency map, change alerts, and remediation backlog.
• Audience 3: Incident response and continuity teams
  Receive dependency-informed priorities (what to restore first, what to isolate first, who to call).

Governance hooks (make it real):

• Change management: new/changed critical dependency requires map update and risk review
• Procurement/TPRM: onboarding or renewal for a critical third party requires confirming which critical services depend on it
• Incident postmortems: update dependency map with “unknown dependency discovered” items

Step 6: Operationalize recurring evidence collection

NIST CSF outcomes are easier to defend when you can show repeatable operation, not just a document. Assign a control owner and define what evidence is collected, when, and where it is stored ¹.

Practical control statement you can adopt:
“Critical business services and their internal and third-party dependencies are documented, reviewed on a defined schedule and upon material change, and communicated to appropriate stakeholders.”

How Daydream fits naturally: If your team struggles to keep dependency mapping, owners, and evidence in sync across service catalogs, TPRM, and GRC workflows, Daydream can serve as the system of record for control ownership and recurring evidence collection, with mapped artifacts and review tasks tied to GV.OC-05.

Required evidence and artifacts to retain

Keep evidence that proves two things: you understand dependencies and you communicate them.

Core artifacts (minimum set):

• Dependency Mapping Standard (scope, definitions, fields, triggers)
• Critical service inventory (service catalog extract or governed spreadsheet)
• Dependency maps per critical service (diagram + structured list)
• Third-party dependency list tied to services (not a separate orphan inventory)
• Concentration risk register entries and remediation tracking
• Communication evidence:
  • Risk committee/steering committee decks or minutes showing dependencies reviewed
  • Distribution logs for dependency reports to service owners/IR/BCP
  • Tickets showing updates made after changes/incidents

Operational evidence (stronger posture):

• Change management tickets referencing dependency updates
• Third-party onboarding/renewal checklists showing service impact review
• Incident postmortems referencing dependency maps
• Tabletop exercise outputs showing dependency-informed prioritization

Common exam/audit questions and hangups

Auditors and examiners tend to probe “show me it’s current and used.”

Expect questions like:

• “List your critical services. Who approved the list?”
• “Pick one critical service and walk us through end-to-end dependencies, including third parties.”
• “How do you know your dependency maps are current after system changes?”
• “Show where leadership reviewed the top dependency risks.”
• “How does incident response know restoration priorities?”

Hangups that slow teams down:

• No agreed definition of “service” (IT components vs business services)
• Dependency mapping exists, but it is not connected to governance (no committee review, no change triggers)
• Third-party inventory is separate from service dependency reality

Frequent implementation mistakes (and how to avoid them)

1. Mistake: Building only an application inventory.
   Fix: Require six dependency categories and force third-party linkage for each critical service.

2. Mistake: One-time mapping workshop, then it rots.
   Fix: Define update triggers (change, incident, renewal) and assign a control owner with recurring evidence tasks.

3. Mistake: Mapping dependencies without naming owners.
   Fix: Every critical service needs a business owner and an IT/service manager accountable for map accuracy.

4. Mistake: Over-scoping the first pass.
   Fix: Start with the most critical services, then expand coverage based on risk.

5. Mistake: Communication is “available on SharePoint.”
   Fix: Create explicit communication events and retain minutes, decks, and distribution evidence.

Risk implications (why operators care)

GV.OC-05 failures usually show up as:

• Unplanned outages because a shared dependency was changed without understanding blast radius.
• Slow incident containment because responders don’t know what services depend on a compromised identity provider, logging pipeline, or SaaS platform.
• Third-party surprises where a subcontractor or cloud region becomes the real point of failure.
• Misaligned investment where controls are strong on low-impact services and weak where revenue or safety depends on them.

Practical 30/60/90-day execution plan

First 30 days: Establish control ownership and minimum dataset

• Name a GV.OC-05 control owner (GRC with ITSM/Enterprise Architecture partner).
• Publish the Dependency Mapping Standard.
• Produce an initial list of critical services with owners.
• Pilot dependency maps for a small set of high-impact services.
• Set up evidence storage and an approval workflow.

Days 31–60: Expand mapping and integrate with governance

• Map dependencies for the remaining critical services in scope.
• Create a concentration risk view (shared platforms, critical third parties).
• Deliver the first dependency briefing to leadership and capture minutes/materials.
• Connect dependency updates to change management and third-party onboarding/renewal steps.

Days 61–90: Prove it operates and survives change

• Run an incident simulation or tabletop using dependency maps to set priorities.
• Validate third-party dependencies against contracts and operational reality (support model, escalation, regions).
• Implement recurring review tasks and KPI-style reporting (qualitative is fine) to show freshness and coverage.
• Close the loop: update maps based on changes and lessons learned; retain evidence.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do we need a formal “service catalog” to satisfy GV.OC-05?

You need a governed list of services and outcomes with owners and dependencies. An ITSM service catalog helps, but a controlled inventory with clear definitions and review triggers can meet the requirement if it is maintained and communicated ¹.

How detailed should dependency mapping be?

Detailed enough that incident response and change management can predict impact and prioritize restoration. If your map can’t identify key third parties, shared platforms, and who to contact, it’s not actionable ¹.

Does GV.OC-05 apply to third parties, or only internal operations?

It applies to what your organization depends on, which includes third parties. The practical test is whether a third party’s outage or compromise would disrupt a critical outcome or service.

Who should “own” GV.OC-05 operationally?

Assign a single control owner in GRC, then require service owners and technology owners to maintain their maps. Without named owners, maps decay and evidence collection fails.

What evidence best demonstrates “communicated”?

Governance artifacts: risk committee decks/minutes, distribution logs, and tickets showing decisions made based on dependency information. A static document without proof of review is a common audit gap.

We have multiple inventories (CMDB, TPRM tool, cloud accounts). How do we reconcile them?

Pick a system of record for critical services and dependencies, then link out to authoritative sources (CMDB, contracts, cloud). Daydream can help by mapping GV.OC-05 to owners, procedures, and recurring evidence tasks so updates stay coordinated across systems.

Footnotes

1. NIST CSWP 29

2. NIST CSWP 29; NIST CSF 1.1 to 2.0 Core Transition Changes