Writing Effective Third-Party Questions in 2026

In this Third-Party Risk Management (TPRM) blog series, Alex Hollis, SureCloud’s Director of Risk Advisory and an established industry voice on third-party assurance, guides you through how to develop effective, modern information-gathering approaches for assessing suppliers.

As organisations move into 2026, third-party ecosystems are becoming more complex than ever, driven by AI-enabled supply chains, rapid SaaS adoption, and increasing regulatory scrutiny. Against this backdrop, a well-structured third-party questionnaire remains a critical tool for organisations seeking to validate security, compliance, resilience, and ethical operations across their vendor landscape.

This instalment focuses on how to write answerable, unambiguous questions; a skill that drives better data quality, reduces supplier friction, and ultimately leads to more confident risk decisions.

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1. Requirements – Define what truly needs to be measured

This starts with identifying business-critical risks, understanding applicable regulatory obligations (including emerging 2025/26 requirements such as NIS2, DORA, and enhanced ESG due diligence laws), and mapping any internal stakeholder expectations. Clear requirements prevent bloated questionnaires and ensure each question has a purpose.

2. Research – Understand the data maturity of your suppliers

Research helps determine what information is realistically obtainable, how it varies across different service types, and how questions may need to be tailored for cloud providers, AI vendors, professional services, or infrastructure suppliers. This is also where prioritisation happens, especially important as organisations try to reduce supplier fatigue.

3. Planning – Choose the right assessment method

Planning includes selecting the structure, level of detail, and assessment style. Increasingly, this also means deciding when to use evidence requests, attestations, automated scanning tools, AI-assisted questionnaires, or even relying on industry frameworks (e.g., CAIQ Lite, SIG Lite). Not every risk requires a full questionnaire, and more organisations are using tiered approaches.

4. Writing questions – Design questions that produce reliable data

This step focuses on clarity, answerability, reducing ambiguity, and ensuring the format (multiple choice, free text, evidence-based, binary) aligns with how suppliers keep records. Well-written questions reduce back-and-forth, improve response accuracy, and support consistent scoring.

5. Testing – Validate with internal reviewers and a pilot group of suppliers

Testing is essential to ensure questions are understood, answerable, and aligned with your risk-scoring model. Feedback often uncovers unclear timeframes, misaligned definitions, or questions that inadvertently introduce bias. Increasingly, organisations perform A/B testing of questions to validate clarity and completion rates.

1) Do – State timeframes clearly

Vague timeframes remain one of the biggest contributors to inaccurate or misleading supplier data.

Poor question:

Has there been an information security breach? Yes/No

What counts as a “breach”? Last month? Five years ago? Only material incidents? As of 2026, many regulations now define reporting windows (e.g., DORA’s 24-hour timeline), so clarity is essential.

Better:

Has your organisation experienced a security incident in the last 12 months? or Please provide details of any material incidents that occurred within the last three years.

2) Don’t – Assume regularity of behaviour

Not all controls operate on predictable schedules, especially for SMEs or vendors with less formal processes.

Poor question:

How frequently have DR/BC tests been performed?

Less than annually / 1–2 annually / 3+ annually

This forces respondents to average activity over time.

Better:

How many DR/BC tests have been performed in the last three years? or When was your most recent test conducted?

This approach supports auditability and enables objective comparison across suppliers.

3) Don’t – Ask for information the respondent cannot realistically access

Asking for highly technical, operational, or narrowly defined metrics often leads to estimates, guesswork, or incomplete responses.

Poor question:

What is the average page loading time customers experienced in the past seven days?

Unless the vendor operates a sophisticated monitoring environment, this is unrealistic.

Better:

Please describe the performance monitoring methods your organisation uses, including any baseline service level metrics.

This produces actionable, verifiable information.

4) Do – Ensure questions align with the vendor’s service type

Generic questionnaires are becoming less effective as supply chains diversify.

Poor question:

Do you follow a secure software development lifecycle?

This assumes software development, excluding providers offering consultancy, infrastructure, or hybrid services.

Better:

If you develop software as part of the service provided, do you follow a secure SDLC?

Options: Yes / Partially / Not applicable

5) Do – Allow respondents to indicate uncertainty or N/A

As supply chains include more AI-as-a-service, micro-SaaS, and offshore partners, it’s increasingly common that vendors cannot definitively answer every question.

Providing “Don’t know”, “N/A”, or “Not applicable based on service type” options reduces forced inaccuracies and helps you:

1. identify training needs

2. refine your question set over time

3. adjust scoring models to account for uncertainty

4. personalise future assessments by risk tier

Designing answerable third-party questionnaire questions isn’t just an operational task; it’s a strategic enabler of stronger, faster, and more reliable risk decisions. As we move further into 2026, supply-chain complexity, AI-driven vendor models, and escalating regulatory expectations mean organisations can no longer rely on vague, generic, or difficult-to-interpret assessments.

To strengthen the quality and accuracy of your third-party responses:

1. Define clear timeframes so suppliers cannot unintentionally misinterpret your intent.

2. Avoid assumptions about maturity, testing cadence, or service types — let your questions reflect real variability across vendor ecosystems.

3. Focus on answerability, asking only for information suppliers can reliably provide and validate.

4. Use “N/A”, “Don’t know” and uncertainty options to capture nuance and improve scoring accuracy.

5. Review and refine continuously, using respondent feedback to evolve your questionnaire structure over time.

By taking these steps, you move from simply collecting data to generating meaningful insight — insight that strengthens operational resilience, improves supplier collaboration, and protects your business from emerging third-party risk.