Classic vs. Smart Assessments Implementation

[KPMGRob]

My company is investigating whether to enable smart assessments at the beginning of a new implementation for IRM/TPRM. We are looking for any customers or implementation partners that have done this, opinions on doing one or the other, pitfalls and risks, etc. which has been hard to find here and in other areas of the ecosystem.

If you have an opinion, but especially experience in doing this for a NEW implementation, please comment with any information around it. 

Very much appreciated in advance,

Rob Farrington

[JadaP]

Great question, Rob, and you’re right that this is harder to find than it should be.

I’ve implemented IRM/TPRM in environments where we enabled Smart Assessment from day one and later down the road, and my strong recommendation is: enable it at the start of a new implementation, not mid-flight.

The change management argument is the most underestimated factor. Once users learn the classic UI, even just for a few weeks, you’re asking them to unlearn a workflow they just learned and can receive more pushback. Classic attestations are table-driven and feel transactional. The Assessment Workspace is contextual and role-oriented. Those are two fundamentally different mental models. Introducing Smart Assessment after go-live means you’re fighting muscle memory, not just retraining on a feature.

Template ownership is a real operational difference. In the classic engine, creating or modifying a questionnaire template requires a developer or admin, it’s not a self-service action.
The Smart Assessment workspace gives practitioners a drag-and-drop Template Builder where your risk team can iterate on templates without opening a ticket. For TPRM especially, where questionnaire needs shift based on vendor tier and due diligence scope, that agility matters.

Licensing and workspace capabilities are entangled. Depending on your IRM license tier, certain capabilities are only accessible from within the workspace, not just preferred there, but exclusively available there. If you design your program around the classic engine, you may be leaving licensed functionality on the table and building workarounds for things that are already solved in the workspace.

Starting clean with Smart Assessment isn’t just a UX decision, it’s an architecture decision. You’re building user expectations, admin patterns, and program workflows all at once. Get them pointed in the right direction from the start.

Happy to compare notes on specific configuration decisions if helpful.