Often there’s confusion regarding scope and role of “governance” in IT and “management of IT”. On one hand, there’s recognition of the fact that governance of IT must be aligned with enterprise governance policies, frameworks and control, On the other hand, IT itself is interested in self managing itself, defining its own rules, having its own processes and controls.
What is the target of Governance?
To be clear regarding the definition and scope of governance in theory: there’s no such factor like an own or dedicated governance system for IT outside of, or in parallel to enterprise governance. The goal of corporate governance is creating value by realizing benefits while optimizing risks and resources. IT must contribute to this goal of corporate governance.
Target of IT Governance
In the current scenario, IT has become an integral part of organization for its success and goal achievement’s, hence governing IT has become crucial. IT needs to deliver outcome against business needs.
This can’t be achieved if there is no governance and management framework that can:
Link IT to business needs.
Make IT performance against business needs measurable and clear.
Organize IT activities into a typically understood and accepted method model.
Identify major resources which will be leveraged.
Define the internal control objectives that require to be thought of.
IT Governance and IT Service Management
Defining and delivering Services to the business or to customers should be the final result of any IT organization. In contrary to the common believe – project delivery isn’t the final goal. Projects are for new or updated services solely and project management governance is an IT activity consistent with that intermediate goal.
IT Governance ensures business needs are connected to Services outcomes. IT is being measured on the basis of service performance, considering performance measures for establishing new or enhanced services via assignments. Services are being organized by outlined and accepted processes, functions (organizations, manpower and technology) – All of these are known as enablers (COBIT terms). Services, processes, organization, folks and technology are being managed by a collection of management objectives -usually structured as an “IT balanced scorecard”. Usually, IT Service Management is being enforced by the use of ITIL® V3 Frame Work.
COBIT and ITIL® V3 Frame Work
COBIT is an IT governance and management framework that focuses on what ought to be lined in processes and procedures.
ITIL® provides careful steering on however the processes or procedures ought to be designed and focuses on a way to structure and implement effective service management processes .
The scope of COBIT is much wider than the scope of ITIL® V3 Service Management:
The COBIT Process Reference Model spans each side, Governance (Evaluate, Direct and Monitor) and Management (Align, Structure and Organize) of IT, whereas the ITIL® V3 Frame Work covers the management areas of IT solely.