The 7 Biggest ISO 27001 pitfalls (and how to avoid them)

Why some journeys stall and others don't

The journeys that stall rarely have to do with lack of budget or technical knowledge. They stall due to misconceptions about what ISO 27001 actually is, unclear scope, or treating compliance as a one-time exercise. The organisations that smoothly progress through their certification avoid these classic mistakes from the start.

The difference isn't in how many resources you have, but in how strategically you deploy them. A small team doing the right things achieves certification faster than a large team struggling with ambiguity and perfectionism. The pitfalls below we encounter time and again—recognise them early, and you can navigate around them.

Pitfall 1: Thinking ISO 27001 tests your systems

The most common misconception is that ISO 27001 is a technical test of your IT systems. Teams focus on firewalls, antivirus programmes and password complexity, while keeping management outside the process. "This is something for the techies" you often hear. The IT team thinks they alone are responsible, and management provides budget but otherwise stays at a distance.

ISO 27001 is a management standard, not a penetration test. It's about how you organise information security—who's responsible, how you make decisions about risks, how you ensure continuous improvement. The auditor doesn't come to hack your systems. They check whether you have management processes to structurally embed security.

This concretely means management must be actively involved. They must establish an information security policy showing what the organisation values. They must allocate budget and time to security—not as a one-time investment but as a structural priority. They must discuss security risks in management meetings, not only when there's an incident. And they must participate in the annual management review assessing how the ISMS functions.

HR plays a role in personnel policy and awareness training—how do you ensure new employees immediately know what's expected of them? Legal helps with contracts and privacy legislation—do your supplier contracts meet requirements? Operations handles physical security and emergency plans—what do you do if the building is unreachable? The entire business is involved, not just IT.

Tidal helps by providing management templates that make board meetings effective, clearly documenting roles and responsibilities, and structuring the information security policy in a way management can approve without needing to understand technical details.

Pitfall 2: Searching for the exact checklist

Teams often want precision: "Tell us exactly what we must do, then we'll execute it." They treat ISO 27001 Annex A as mandatory shopping and implement all ninety-three controls "to be safe". Or they copy controls from other companies without thinking whether these fit their situation.

ISO 27001 provides a framework, not a recipe book. The standard doesn't say "install this firewall" or "use this password policy". It says "identify your risks, and implement appropriate controls". What's appropriate for a webshop with payment data is totally different than for a consultancy with only laptops.

The right approach starts with your own risks. What would cause real damage in your business? For a consultancy, a stolen laptop with client data is a major problem—so encryption and remote wipe are crucial. For a webshop, leaked payment data is existential—so PCI-DSS compliance and continuous monitoring are essential. For a SaaS company, a database misconfiguration can mean thousands of customers see data not intended for them—so strict access controls and change management are priority.

The rule of thumb: if you can't tell a story about why a control is important for your specific business, don't implement it. The auditor wants to hear that story. "We implemented this because other companies do it too" isn't a good answer. "We implemented this because our risk assessment showed that X is a realistic scenario with high impact" is exactly what they want to hear.

Tidal helps through guided risk assessment that helps you identify specific threats for your situation. Controls are already linked to risks, so you directly see which controls are relevant for the risks you've identified. And the gap analysis shows where you really need to take action instead of ticking off generic checklists.

Pitfall 3: Defining scope too broadly or vaguely

"We'll certify everything, then we're certainly good" sounds safe but leads to unmanageable complexity. Your scope document becomes longer than two pages. You include systems "to be safe" that you're actually not sure are relevant. And then the audit quotation comes in much higher than expected because your scope is so broad that many more audit days are needed.

Too broad scope means many more audit days and thus costs. It means a complex risk analysis where you waste time on irrelevant matters. And it means difficult maintenance because you must continue monitoring everything, including systems that actually aren't critical for your business.

Focus instead on business critical information. Which systems contain customer data? Where are your most important business processes? What would cause real damage in an incident? A good scope definition is concrete and concise: "Development, hosting and support of our SaaS application, including customer data and source code. Excluding: office network, HR systems, financial administration."

Note: changing scope after certification costs extra audit days. It's better to start with a narrow, clear scope and expand later than to start broadly and then realise you've locked yourself into three years of unnecessary compliance work.

Tidal's business impact analysis helps you determine which assets are truly critical. The link between risks and assets shows for which systems you must implement controls. And the scope support guides you step-by-step through the choices without needing to be a compliance expert.

Pitfalls 4 and 5: Documentation as an end in itself

Two related pitfalls revolve around documentation. One: teams thinking "we write this down so the auditor is satisfied" and then put the documents in a folder and forget them. Procedures nobody knows or follows. Documents not updated since the audit. Teams saying "we do it differently than described, but what we do is correct."

The other: teams thinking "more documentation = better compliance" and then producing two-hundred-page policy documents nobody reads. Procedures with forty-seven steps and twelve pages. New employees ask "must I really read all this?" Updates take more than a workday per document.

Both approaches miss the point. Documentation must help you work better, not placate auditors or show perfection. Start by observing what teams do now. Only write down what you actually want to enforce. Make procedures as simple as possible. Test whether new employees can follow the procedure without explanation.

A good example: instead of a twelve-page incident response procedure with forty-seven steps, you write "In case of security incident: 1) Isolate the affected system, 2) Call CISO (mobile number), 3) Document in Tidal." That's workable. That gets followed. And that can be tested.

For password policy: instead of "minimum 12 characters, uppercase, lowercase, numbers, special characters, not reusing last 24 passwords..." you write "Use a password manager like 1Password or Bitwarden, and enable two-factor authentication for all critical systems." Short, clear, executable.

Tidal's template library contains proven short procedures that teams actually follow. Automatic version control prevents documentation chaos. Review workflows ensure documents stay current without this becoming an enormous administrative burden.

Pitfall 6: ISO 27001 as annual ritual

"We're certified, now we only need to update documentation annually for the surveillance audit." Teams spend months paying no attention to information security. The risk assessment only gets updated just before the audit. The incident response plan has never been tested. Security training only exists on paper.

ISO 27001 requires continuous improvement. The standard isn't called a "management system" for nothing—it must live in your organisation, not be an annual paperwork ritual. Auditors want to see that you actively work on security. They ask about security incidents from the past year and how you learned from them. They check whether your incident response plan has ever been tested. They want to see evidence of continuous monitoring, not just snapshots made for the audit.

Build in rhythm instead. A monthly compliance check of thirty minutes in Tidal keeps you informed. A quarterly meeting about security incidents and trends ensures you learn from what happens. An annual revision of your risk assessment checks whether new threats or business changes have altered your risk profile. Continuous monitoring of critical systems means you see deviations immediately instead of afterwards.

Concrete activities could be: Q1 update your risk assessment and plan your security training. Q2 work on automatic tests that fail and improve your IT security. Q3 review your access rights and monitor progress of your security awareness programme. Q4 conduct the internal audit and management review, and plan next year.

Tidal's automatic monitoring of technical controls means you don't have to manually check whether things still match. The compliance dashboard shows real-time status. Periodic tasks ensure you forget nothing. And trend analysis helps you identify improvement points before they become problems.

Pitfall 7: One person as single point of failure

ISO 27001 becomes one person's project while the rest of the team watches. The project leader does everything themselves "because then it goes faster". The team says "this isn't my responsibility". When the project leader is absent, everything stops. And when implementation is complete, nobody else knows how it works or where things are.

This is a recipe for problems. Not just during implementation—where the project leader becomes overworked and risks burnout—but especially afterwards. Compliance isn't one-time. You need continuous involvement from people who know how the system works, where documentation is, and what their responsibilities are.

Divide responsibilities and knowledge from the start. The IT manager takes charge of technical controls and monitoring. The HR manager picks up personnel policy and awareness training. Operations handles physical security and incident response. Management gives direction to policy and strategy. Let each team member "own" one control domain so they become expert in that area.

Schedule a monthly short update meeting where everyone shares where they stand. Document in Tidal who's responsible for what, so this is transparent for the organisation. Train backup people for critical roles—what happens if your CISO is on holiday for three weeks and there's a security incident?

Tidal's role-based access ensures everyone sees their part without being overwhelmed by the full scope. Task assignments make responsibilities explicit. And collaboration features like mentions help teams communicate effectively about compliance topics without endless meetings.

Recognise warning signs before it's too late

Some signals indicate your project is going the wrong way. With scope creep you see that more and more systems are added "to be safe". Your audit scope estimate grows from three to six days. The team constantly asks "must we include this too?"

With process paralysis, discussion about one procedure takes more than two weeks. Documents get version 0.8, then 0.9, then 0.95 without ever becoming final. You hear "we must make this perfect first before we continue."

With implementation fatigue, meetings get postponed "due to busyness". Deadlines keep shifting. The team says "this takes much longer than promised." The energy is gone and nobody knows exactly why you're doing this anymore.

These signals require immediate action. With scope creep: stop and redefine what's truly business critical. Make a "phase 2" list for expansions later. Calculate the impact of your current scope on time and budget.

With process paralysis: set hard deadlines for document approval. Apply the principle "good enough is perfect"—version 1.0 may be imperfect. Implement first, optimise later.

With implementation fatigue: remind the team of business value—why are we actually doing this? Celebrate small wins by explicitly noting completed milestones. Get external help if the team truly gets stuck and needs fresh eyes.

The three success factors that determine everything

Journeys that succeed have three things in common. First, management commitment—not just budget but also time and attention. Management that participates in reviews, makes decisions, and gives compliance priority.

Second, realistic planning. Divide the project into goals you can achieve per week. Celebrate small wins instead of waiting for the big final moment. This maintains momentum and prevents the team feeling it will never be finished.

Third, a practical approach. Implement what works, not what's perfect. Start with simple versions of procedures and improve them as you learn. Focus on controls that address real risks instead of wanting to implement all ninety-three Annex A controls.

Once your team recognises a pitfall, address it within a week. Small problems quickly become large delays. An unclear scope you let simmer now will cost you weeks later. A documentation approach that doesn't work and you accept now "because we're already this far" will cost you six months of maintenance that nobody does.

If you want to know how Tidal can help you avoid these pitfalls and make your ISO 27001 journey run smoothly, contact us for a demo. We'll show you which pitfalls we most commonly see with organisations starting themselves, and how our platform helps you avoid them from day one.