Essay Example on COBIT Model: Crucial for Integrated IT Governance

Introduction

Using the COBIT model in an organization is crucial because most people in management positions fail to grasp the importance of interdependencies. IT governance is not a common term because most people think of programs, portfolios, and projects.

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Furthermore, most people believe that portfolio, program, and project management exist separately since they appear unrelated. Organizations must understand the importance of using a COBIT framework to make use of an integrated system for IT governance on all company functions. I chose governance as a COBIT domain because it provides the needed guidelines for improved IT processes.

Governance, a COBIT domain, and maturity level 3 in the CMMI framework support almost a similar goal of making an IT enterprise more profitable. I chose Maturity level 3 because every organization must focus its efforts on establishing a set of standard processes and make improvements where necessary. At maturity level 3, a company can grow the much-needed consistency for long-term growth. This level of maturity is also crucial for a company's capacity to streamline its projects by tailoring standard processes to suit an organizational unit or specific projects. A company has the potential to improve its processes tailoring guidelines for project managers.

COBIT Domain: Governance for Project Management

The primary objective of governance for an IT enterprise is to ensure value creation enabled by the board members and the support of the management team. With a functioning governance system, it becomes easy for a company to secure optimum value from all initiatives concerning the application of IT. It also becomes possible for a company to apply the COBIT framework to ensure cost-efficient delivery of solutions and services (ISACA, 2018). Board members have the necessary tools with the application of the COBIT domain since they can forecast a company's expenditure, which motivates the need for employees to complete projects within the specified time. Projects become more manageable if various company processes are integrated to ensure a streamlined control (ISACA, 2018). It becomes easy to track changes and performance if all processes involved in project fulfillments work towards a common goal. Governance is essential in ensuring IT projects deliver benefits that lead to value contribution to a business.

Any organization that seeks to improve governance and management should implement governance as the COBIT domain. In the application of the domain, an IT enterprise has an increased chance of maximizing value from investments. As such, key decision-makers in a company should strive to ensure that the COBIT framework provides for all facets of value creation: optimizing resources, optimizing risks, and realizing benefits (Andry & Setiawan, 2019). All activities in an IT enterprise should promote value creation and should be tested before it is implemented. Testing the value of COBIT governance ensures that all employees become aware of how to support the new system for increased job satisfaction (Andry, 2016). Eventually, the COBIT framework will be useful in executing the strategic direction for investments. With such a system, it becomes possible for project managers to make decisions that align with the enterprise architecture vision. As a result, governance as a COBIT domain should be implemented to support critical decision-makers in creating policies that support a company's strategic direction.

CMMI Maturity Level 3 for Project Management

At this level of maturity, processes with a company are defined and understood by every employee, and categorized in standards, tools, methods, and procedures. The purpose of this level of maturity is to ensure that project managers have a model for tracking progressive improvement in the project life cycle. It is also a chance to assess the ability of an organization to improve as time progresses (Iqbal et al., 2018). This level of maturity offers project managers a chance to assess their organizations and develop a model for managing projects (Brewer & Dittman, 2018). As such, it can be customized to fit the needs of the organization. Every employee should understand the significance of the model and offer their support to ensure overall organizational growth.

At maturity level 3, a company's internal processes are described more rigorously, and processes are more organized. The maturity level 3 fits the description of almost all companies since it allows for more proactive management of projects using an understanding of the interrelationship of activities that lead up to the delivery of services and products. All organizations are always in need of improving internal processes to ensure growth, which seems oblivious when collaboration is lacking (Brewer & Dittman, 2018). Here, a company has the opportunity to increase its offerings by finding out redundant functions that use essential resources. Completing projects becomes more comfortable with the increased collaboration supported by the level of maturity. When a company becomes more organized, the management of resources becomes more comfortable, which culminates in the efficient completion of projects.

References

Andry, J. F. (2016). Audit of IT Governance Based on COBIT 5 assessments: A case study. Jurnal Nasional Teknologi dan Sistem Informasi, 2(2), 27-34.

Andry, J. F., & Setiawan, A. K. (2019). IT Governance Evaluation using COBIT 5 Framework on the National Library. Jurnal Sistem Informasi, 15(1), 10-17.

Brewer, J. L., & Dittman, K. C. (2018). Methods of IT project management. Purdue University Press.

Iqbal, J., Khan, M., & Minhas, N. M. (2018). Are project managers informally following capability maturity model integration practices for project management?. Global Journal of Information Technology: Emerging Technologies, 8(3), 86-94.

ISACA. (2018). COBIT 2019 [pdf].