Many Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) implementations fail to achieve their objectives. In fact, Gartner classifies most as “distressed” due to insufficient resources. 

Organizations often struggle with two key questions: 

1. Where do we start? and 
2. How do we move forward? 

With so many interdependent components, it’s easy to get overwhelmed, especially if you lack a clear strategy or haven’t prioritized the various needs and objectives. Fortunately, a well-defined strategy can mitigate much of the risk associated with implementing IGA. 

In the following sections, I’ll outline a concise framework that can guide you through starting and continuously maturing your IGA program. These steps are sequenced to deliver maximum impact early, with each subsequent phase adding more sophistication. 

Of course, feel free to adapt the framework to your organization’s specific context.

However, before launching into any journey, it’s crucial to know the destination: The ultimate goal of IGA is to ensure the right people have the right level of access to the right tool at the right time.

With our end goal defined, let’s explore how to get started.

1. Start With User Access Reviews

Why Start Here?

In this step, the focus is mainly on compliance, but you can also start with this when prioritizing security to enforce least privilege access on apps with sensitive data.

Since these are mandatory due to laws or regulations, access reviews are definitely conducted. There are very few chances that the project will fail. 

• Quick Time to Value: Access reviews (certifications) quickly demonstrate tangible impact, such as eliminating unnecessary access and meeting audit requirements.
• Audit & Compliance Alignment: Timed with regular compliance audits (e.g., SOX, HIPAA, GDPR), access reviews can provide immediate, visible results.
• Building Momentum: Early wins help secure buy-in from senior management and line-of-business stakeholders.
• Why UAR is attractive to start with:
  
  • Quick compliance win: Demonstrates to auditors that you are actively monitoring and controlling who has access.
  • Relative simplicity: A process where managers review a list of user entitlements and approve/remove them.

Key Activities

Can further prioritize by focusing on critical apps, i.e., apps with sensitive data.

1. Select High-Value Apps
   Focus on applications that hold sensitive or business-critical data, such as HR systems (HRMS), CRM, finance applications, and identity providers (IdP).
2. Conduct Access Reviews
   
   • Identify owners for each application or dataset.
   • Review and revoke unauthorized access or excessive privileges.
   • Right-size roles to ensure people only have the access needed.
3. Document Outcomes
   
   • Track which changes were made and why.
   • Identify recurring themes (e.g., a specific team always has excessive access) to address in subsequent steps.
4. Measure and Report
   
   • Highlight compliance status, cost savings from freed-up licenses, and risk reductions.

Result: A baseline “point in time” view of who has access to what, reducing immediate risk and compliance issues. 

A side benefit can be cost savings from a revoked license, which may make your finance team happier. 

But while UAR is a great starting point, you shouldn't stop here. Because it falls short of achieving our IGA—a state where the right people have the right level of access to the right tools at the right time.

UAR as a Starting Point, Not the End Goal

• Why is UAR alone not enough?
  
  • IGA is about continuous governance—ensuring the right people have the right access at all times. UAR is just one mechanism to validate access, not the entire governance framework.

Key Limitations of User Access Reviews

1. Point-in-Time Nature
   
   • Challenge: Access reviews are often done quarterly or annually.
   • Impact:
     
     • Organizational changes (hires, promotions, terminations, department shifts) can happen frequently.
     • This creates a gap between reviews where users might accumulate improper access, even if they had correct access during the last review.
   • Mitigation:
     
     • Implement automated provisioning/deprovisioning workflows.
     • Introduce continuous monitoring or real-time triggers for role changes and terminations.
2. Limited Compliance & Security Coverage
   
   • Challenge: Many organizations start UAR focusing on critical or in-scope applications to meet a specific compliance requirement (e.g., SOX, HIPAA).
   • Impact:
     
     • Other applications remain unchecked, which can still pose security or compliance risks.
     • True “least privilege” goes beyond the few core applications in formal audits—it must extend to all critical systems, including cloud services and SaaS applications.
   • Mitigation:
     
     • Gradually expand UAR coverage to include more applications.
     • Integrate applications into a centralized identity platform for consistent policy enforcement.
3. Restrictive by Nature
   
   • Challenge: UAR typically focuses on removing excessive or outdated access.
   • Impact:
     
     • It doesn’t solve for the larger, continuous goal of ensuring users always have the right access when they need it (e.g., upon onboarding or role changes).
     • Without an automated provisioning approach, managers may under-provision users out of caution, which can harm productivity.
   • Mitigation: So the logical next step is to:
     
     • Complement UAR with user lifecycle management (joiner, mover, leaver processes).
     • Implement request-and-approval workflows to grant new privileges accurately and maintain an audit trail.

2. Automate Lifecycle Management

Why This Matters

• Sustained Compliance: While access reviews are periodic, lifecycle automation is continuous, ensuring that correct access is granted or removed in near real-time.
• Less Manual Effort: Automating joiner-mover-leaver processes (JML) can handle up to 40% (or more) of repetitive provisioning and deprovisioning tasks.
• Consistency & Accuracy: Reduces human error and shortens the window of unauthorized access.

Key Activities

1. Define JML Scenarios
   
   • Birthright Access: Basic level of access for every new hire (e.g., email, collaboration tools).
   • Department/Role-Based Access: Automatic assignment of department-level or role-specific apps.
2. Integrate HR & IT Systems
   
   • Real-time or scheduled synchronization from the HR system to the identity provider (IdP).
   • Use triggers (such as new hire events, internal transfers, and exits) to provision or revoke access.
3. Implement Offboarding Automation
   
   • Immediately revoke all access when an employee leaves to prevent “abandoned” or “orphaned” accounts.
4. Monitor & Refine
   
   • Periodically review automated workflows for exceptions and adapt as roles change or new applications come online.

Result: A consistent, near real-time method to grant and revoke access, reducing the burden during quarterly/annual access reviews and tightening security.

3. Granular Access Management (Entitlements & Permissions)

Why This Matters

• Finer Control: Beyond just granting app access, you need to manage entitlements within applications (e.g., Slack channels, Trello boards, CRM reports).
• Reduced Risk: Minimizes “over-provisioning” and enforces least privilege principles at a resource or entitlement level.
• Builds on Prior Steps: Insights from access reviews and lifecycle processes inform which entitlements should be automated, delegated, or restricted.

Key Activities

1. Map Application Resources
   
   • Identify how each app structures permissions (roles, groups, channels, boards, projects, etc.).
   • Assign “owners” who truly understand the structure and risk of each resource.
2. Automate Granular Provisioning
   
   • Incorporate resource-level permissions into the same workflows that provision and deprovision user accounts.
   • Configure approval workflows for high-risk or privileged entitlements.
3. Leverage Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)
   
   • Extend from basic departmental roles to more granular “job function” roles.
   • Use role mining and analytics from previous reviews to refine entitlements.

Result: A more refined, least-privilege approach that aligns specific job duties with the necessary resources, reducing the attack surface and supporting compliance mandates.

4. Strengthen Identity Security

Why This Matters

• Broaden Your Scope: Even with least privilege in place, there are still risks from privilege escalation, lateral movement, and unmonitored “shadow IT” resources.
• Reduce Attack Surface: Identity-based attacks are growing. A robust IGA posture can significantly mitigate the impact of breaches.

Key Activities

1. Risk-Based Approach
   
   • Classify apps and data by risk level (low, medium, high).
   • Focus advanced security controls (multifactor authentication, stricter approval workflows) on high-risk areas.
2. Privilege Access Management (PAM) Integration
   
   • Combine IGA with privileged access management solutions for admins or super-users.
   • Implement just-in-time (JIT) access for critical systems.
3. Continuous Monitoring & Audit Trails
   
   • Deploy anomaly detection to flag unusual permission changes or login behaviors.
   • Maintain detailed activity logs for forensic analysis.
4. Shadow IT Discovery
   
   • Use tools to discover unapproved apps or services.
   • Decide whether to onboard them into the IGA framework or restrict them.

Result: A security-centric IGA strategy that actively prevents unauthorized or risky access while maintaining business agility.

5. Enable Self-Service Access Requests

Why This Matters

• User Experience & Productivity: Empower employees to request access or roles on demand, reducing friction and wait times.
• Business Enablement: Streamlines the process of requesting new tools or permissions, with built-in approvals ensuring security and compliance.
• Scalability: Shifts ownership to business stakeholders who can approve access based on policies and delegated authority.

Key Activities

1. Deploy an Access Request Portal
   
   • Provide a unified, user-friendly interface for employees to request applications, roles, or entitlements.
   • Include a clear approval workflow (e.g., manager, application owner).
2. Establish Approval Chains
   
   • At least two levels of approvals for high-risk or privileged requests.
   • Ensure requests for critical systems require thorough justification.
3. Automate Fulfillment
   
   • Approved requests automatically provision entitlements in connected systems.
   • Integrate with the same identity workflows from lifecycle management.
4. Monitor & Report on Requests
   
   • Track trends (who requests what, how frequently, bottlenecks) and optimize accordingly.

Result: A self-service model that enhances user productivity, enforces policy controls, and solidifies a culture of secure, efficient access.

Putting It All Together

1. Access Reviews give quick wins and set a compliance baseline.
2. Lifecycle Management automates routine provisioning and deprovisioning, making audits smoother and reducing risk.
3. Granular Access extends governance deeper into application-level resources.
4. Identity Security broadens your perspective to include advanced threat prevention and privilege controls.
5. Self-Serve Requests improve agility and user satisfaction while maintaining oversight.

Additional Best Practices

• Phase Your Rollout: Start small (pilot group or a single department), gather feedback, refine processes, then expand.
• Data Cleanliness: IGA success hinges on accurate identity data. Invest in data cleanup and HR system alignment early.
• Policy & Ownership: Clearly define responsibilities for application owners, security teams, and auditors to ensure effective collaboration and oversight.
• Metrics & Reporting: Track key metrics (time saved, number of orphaned accounts removed, policy violations detected) to demonstrate ROI and continuous improvement.
• Stay Agile: Identity needs evolve rapidly with the introduction of new applications, mergers and acquisitions, or organizational changes. Continuously adapt processes and tools.

Conclusion - A good IGA strategy enables business growth and innovation through secure, streamlined access.

Embarking on an IGA journey is less about deploying a single solution and more about building a layered, interconnected framework over time. 

By focusing on quick wins (access reviews), then steadily automating and refining processes (lifecycle management, granular permissions), and finally enabling advanced security controls and self-service, you create a resilient identity governance ecosystem. 

This roadmap not only keeps your organization compliant but also enables business growth and innovation through secure, streamlined access.

‍