For SaaS GRC leads and CISOs
The exception queue is where good programs can quietly fail.
Your controls exist, and the tools are installed. But the backlog can still hide the same risk under three ticket numbers, with a plan that isn’t really a plan, extended ninety days at a time.
Gruntworks makes that queue honest, then leaves you a process you can run without us.
The problem we actually fix
Most teams don’t fail SOC 2 audits because they lack a framework. They fail because of poor exception practices, accepting the wrong risks, and “we’ll get to it” items that never have a real owner, a real end date, or a public view of what's aging.
That is not a documentation problem. It is an operating problem.
We look at the queue as it is, not as the policy says it should be.
What that looks like in the queue
• One issue opened three times, three ticket numbers, no one sure which record is true.
• An action plan that restates the problem and names no owner.
• A risk accepted for ninety days, then ninety more, for three years.
• Chronic items that never surface because the dashboard only shows this week’s opens.
1. Exception Assessment
A fixed-fee look at the queue and the process around it. You get a findings report you own.
2. Exception Process Build
We design the lifecycle, the documentation standard, the review cadence, and the view that makes chronic items impossible to hide. Then we train the person who owns the queue.
The deliverable is built to survive our absence.
3. Standing Review
Month-to-month senior judgment on the hard cases: what deserves an exception, for how long, and what is about to age into a finding. Audit prep included. No required tool.