Managing Exceptions and Non-Compliance Findings

Not every deviation from a compliance control can be fixed immediately, which is why every mature program needs a formal exception management process that allows a known gap to be temporarily authorized, documenting the business justification, the residual risk accepted, who approved the exception and until when it's valid, instead of leaving the deviation unrecorded or forcing a hasty, poor-quality fix. This process differs from the management of actual non-compliance findings, which are deviations detected without prior authorization and do require a remediation plan with a defined deadline. In practice, an exception with no expiration date tends to become permanent through inertia, so exceptions must be reviewed periodically and require new explicit approval if the underlying risk still hasn't been resolved, preventing a temporary deviation from becoming the organization's unwritten norm.