Background: IT governance intends to align the business strategy and IT investment, mitigate risk associated with IT, optimize the use of IT resources to contain costs, and create new business value based on IT solutions. These goals are accomplished by focusing on the processes associated with managing IT. COBIT is a governance framework that takes a holistic approach to decision-making by engaging major stakeholders in the decisions regarding the use of IT. The COBIT IT governance framework groups 40 IT managing processes into five categories based on the IT lifecycle:
5 processes (EDM01 EDM05)
14 processes (APO01 APO14)
11 processes (BAI01- BAI14)
6 processes (DSS01 DSS06)
4 processes (MEA01 MEA04)
Failures in IT often occur when changes are made to meet new business needs or when external factors impact the demand for the amount or type of IT services. Examples of IT failures are: an IT operational breakdown causing a systems crash, IT project management cost overruns or delays, misalignment of IT investment and business strategy, an IT ethical lapse resulting in reputational damage, an IT solution that is buggy or error-prone, IT services unable to handle the volume of requests culminating in lost business. The processes in the COBIT governance framework can mitigate or circumvent problems with managing IT.
Discussion: This discussion aims to analyze how an IT governance framework, such as COBIT, can impact business decisions and potentially avoid/mitigate IT failures.
Find an article published in the last year describing an internal IT failure, not an external cyberattack. (Do not use the same article another student posted.) Briefly summarize the article and describe the type of IT failure and its impact.
Identify which processes in the COBIT governance framework could have helped to prevent or manage the problem in the article you found. Explain your analysis.
Describe the stakeholder groups who should have been involved to avoid or manage the problem in the article.
Analyze how the IT problem you found might apply to the company you selected in Week 1. What might have been the impact if that IT issue occurred in that business?