Working Together for Enterprise Architecture- TOGAF, ITIL,

COBIT and CMMI

IT management has become an integral part of every business today. Not a single business can
survive without an effective IT management system. This is largely because most business
operations today rely on IT systems. There are three major frameworks that influence IT
management today. These frameworks include ITIL, CMMI, and COBIT. Even though these
frameworks are so important, they are incompatible with the necessary the doctrine of Business
Process Management philosophy. An example of this incompatibility is the analysis of the ITIL
value network support. It is therefore important to understand the implication of this
incompatibility and its consequences. Understanding why this inconsistency occurs will help you
to find an alternative approach.
For starters, these frameworks serve to define broad sections of information technology
practice. Moreover, their profound influence is being experienced globally. In most cases, these
frameworks are used as criteria for offering contracts, assessing maturity, evaluating risk and
performance. It is also worthwhile to point out that these frameworks work to define as well as
stabilize the IT terminology and utilize it to describe the common IT practice. The IT industry is
always under serious scrutiny with most critics challenging the ability of IT to offer consistent
services. They also challenge the capability of information technology to manage itself
appropriately. Thats why it is critical to have a clear understanding of how these three
frameworks work.
When it comes to BPM (business process management), there is a lot of literature associated
with it. This literature includes understanding how to recognize, establish and improve different
business processes. It is also important to note that there is always a considerable overlie
between BPM and other continuous step up techniques like the Lean and Six Sigma. BPM has
always been employed in the management of IT systems. The other two terms use the word
process defiantly, and that is why they are normally called process frameworks. Hence, they
place themselves for inspection from BPMs point of view.
COBIT, on the other hand, is the short form of Control Objective for Information Technology. This
framework uses a somewhat different direction in defining its processes. For instance, it is
known to always start with verbs. But these processes are not really crisp. CMMI is known to be
somewhat a meta-process. It contains a set of criteria that may be applied to all processes. It is
open to all processes. Its processes are similar to COBIT and ITIL.

About Writer
Syed Azher is the Board Member of BITS and Head of IT for Ibdar Bank, Bahrain. He writes
about Project Management, IT Leadership, Business Process re-engineering, networking,
security, data centers, network management, and other topics.
LinkedIn Profile: bh.linkedin.com/in/syedazher