IT Frameworks and Controls

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IT FRAMEWORKS AND CONTROLS
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IT FRAMEWORKS AND CONTROLS
IT Management Frameworks
There is quite a number of Control Frameworks in IT. These frameworks include COBIT, ITIL
and PMBOK (Medium, 2018). These frameworks are very useful in the businesses, as they help
in controlling the businesses. Each framework has its own advantages in a business.
COBIT is a framework for information technology that was developed by a group called
Information System Audit and Control Association (ISACA) and Information Technology
Governance Institute (ITGF) in the early 1990s. The current version of COBIT is version 5
(COBIT 5). COBIT provides: a set of accepted measures, indicators, best practices and process.
COBIT was developed to help in the growth of enterprise IT (Resourcenter.net, 2018). It
provided the best practices and working standards that would result into improvement. The major
difference between COBIT framework and the other frameworks is that COBIT mainly focuses
on security, information governance and risk management. COBIT framework has goals that it is
meant to achieve (Rozemeijer and Bon, 2007). COBIT is meant to streamline information
sharing across an organization. COBIT also helps in reaching the corporate goals by integrating
IT into the business strategy. Security in a business is very important and any company would
pay for any cost to ensure that the business is secure. The final goal of the COBIT framework is
to integrate ISACA research and the COBIT framework. The COBIT framework has got five
main components. These components include: The framework, the process descriptions, control
objectives, the management guidelines and the maturity model (Zhang and Fever, 2013).
The framework of COBIT guides the organization through best practices and standard IT
processes and infrastructure (Rozemeijer & Bon, 2008). The framework also helps the executives
in an organization to understand the IT objectives. The process descriptions have got a language
that all people in an organization can understand. This helps to establish firm base for integration
between IT department and the entire department within the organization and outside the
organization. The control objectives offers an overview of the requirements that will help in the
improvement of the IT process in order to help in attaining the business goals. The management
guidelines helps in establishing objectives and assigning tasks and responsibilities across the
organization. Finally, the COBIT maturity models helps an organization to assess the maturity of
their organization and enable an organization to grow and identify problems that might arise in
the business. COBIT 5 is advisable to use by most organizations. The organization should use

IT FRAMEWORKS AND CONTROLS
many frameworks such as ITIL, ISO 2000, IEC 200 or CMI. The organization should also use
the regulatory guidelines. The regulated guidelines are also accompanied by some principles
which lead to a successful completion of a project. The COBIT principles include: meeting key
stakeholder needs, cover the enterprise end-to-end, encourage approaches to business and move
governance away from management.
IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is also a framework that IT service in the management in an
organization. The ITIL is a public framework for governance of IT. ITIL was developed by
Britain’s Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA), which is currently known
as Office of Government Commerce (OGC). ITIL tends to mainly focus on the quality of IT
service delivered. Quality IT services leads to may benefits in an organization in their business
processes. The benefits include: increased customer and user satisfaction, availability of services
and therefor resulting to big profit margins, improved time to market the produce and services
and better decision making thus minimizing the risks in an organization (Itinfo.am, 2018).
The structure of ITIL has five core components. This components include: the service strategy,
service design, service transition, service operation and continuation of service improvement.
The service strategy gives the guidance on how to view a service. The service strategy include:
the developments of service markets, service assets and the implementation of a strategy ("ITIL
refreshed", 2007). The use of service strategies leads to the improvement of the business
strategies. The service design provide the blueprint for delivering the organization objectives.
The service design provides guidance for the design and development of management services.
Service design also includes the changes and the improvements that are necessary to increase and
maintain value to customers in the process of delivering services and products to the customers
(Alojail and Corbitt, 2016). The service transition gives the guidance that is required in the
improvement and the capabilities o changing into a new service operation. The service transition
tend to merge the practices in change, configuration, deployment and risk management. The
service operation enhances the management of daily operation services. It aims at achieving the
efficiency and effectiveness of the business processes. The organizations are given the guidelines
on providing support on the daily operations and to help in the decision making. Finally, the
continual service improvement provides the guidance on how to bring more customers and
maintain the current customers. This result to greater profits and revenue in organizations.

IT FRAMEWORKS AND CONTROLS
The other framework is PMBOK. The framework is mainly used in the project management. In
IT projects, it is necessary to manage the projects. There are various areas that require
management such as in managing integration, managing scope, managing time and schedule,
managing costs, managing quality, managing human resources, managing communication and
managing risks (J.D. Meier's, 2018).
Management integration enable all the modules being developed in a project to move
collectively. This help in monitoring and controlling the changes made in a project. Every scope
need s to have a defined scope. The entire scope must be broken down in order to be worked on
in small manageable sections. This will enhance easy controlling of the project (Fernández-Parra,
Garrido-Saroza, Ramírez-Martínez & Perdomo-Bello, 2016). PMBOK helps in managing costs
in the resource planning, budgeting and cost estimating. PMBOK helps in managing quality of
the project. Service resource management enhances team work in project development. It also
enhances team work hence faster completion of IT tasks. Communication is also enhance using
this framework. Communication is very important in a project development (Opentextbc.ca,
2018). The communication enhance proper planning, information distribution and reporting on
the performance. The framework helps in risk management too. PMBOK leads to faster
completion of projects that are of high quality.
Aligning IT operations with the business goals
Usually a weak IT strategy in a business will always lead to a business failure. It is advisable to
have a well analyzed IT strategy that will help in attaining the business goals more efficiently
and effectively. The IT operations are meant to help the business to improve on achieving their
goals compared to the traditional methods. Most businesses today have implemented the IT
infrastructure and operations in their business (Laware, 2009). These process of implementing
the IT infrastructure and operation into a business has to be well analyzed and ensure that the
business will meet the business goals. A weak IT implementation will be costly and time
wasting. In an organization, the resources are constrained and they operate with a minimal
budget, tools and people. Therefore the implementation of the IT operations and infrastructure
should be less expensive and time saving. The IT strategy should be in a position to meet the