Why CMMC success starts with recurring invites, not emergency all-hands.

The fastest way to tank an assessment? Waiting until the week before to check your documentation.

At CEIC West 2025, the session titled “Creatures of Habit” hit on a critical insight that too many compliance teams miss:

“You don’t need history—you need a habit.”

 

The Real Compliance Killer? Inconsistency.

CMMC isn’t hard only because the controls are complicated. It’s hard because most companies treat compliance like a project, not a process. They wait until something external—an assessment, an RFP, a subcontractor request—forces them to react.

This reactive mode turns what should be a calm, documented, cross-functional effort into a frantic, last-minute scramble. And guess what? That’s when mistakes happen. Evidence goes missing. Policies are outdated. Responsibilities get blurred.

CEIC Panelists Shared This Pattern:

  • Annual reviews are often skipped or “pencil-whipped.”
  • Quarterly check-ins get deprioritized when projects heat up.
  • Weekly habits? Rare—unless you bake them in.

One speaker put it bluntly: “You have to operationalize your compliance. If it’s not on the calendar, it’s not real.”

 

How Smart Teams Bake It In

Instead of relying on memory or good intentions, leading organizations are using their calendar as a compliance tool:

  •  Weekly 30-minute “Control Check” meetings: rotate through domains, validate evidence, and document changes.
  •  Quarterly tabletop exercises: verify incident response readiness with real scenarios.
  •  Annual policy reviews: aligned with your fiscal year planning, not squeezed in during holidays.
  •  Task sharing: rotating control ownership so compliance isn’t siloed in IT.

This rhythm builds muscle memory. It distributes ownership. And over time, it makes compliance normal—not a one-time event.

 

Action Step: Start Simple

Drop a recurring calendar invite this week called “Control Check.”

Choose one control—just one.
Walk through the policy. Check the implementation. Look at the evidence.
Assign someone to own it. Rotate controls weekly.

Do that 52 times a year and you’ll be miles ahead of companies that only scramble when the assessment clock is ticking.

 

Why This Matters

CMMC is evolving. Audits are becoming real. And contract officers are losing patience with companies that can’t demonstrate maturity.

Habits beat heroics every time. You don’t need more effort—you need better rhythms.