Unveiling the key differences between Agile IT Governance and COBIT

Key differences between Agile IT Governance and COBIT

• COBIT IT governance framework deals with the plans, procedures and policies that drive a reviewed, documented, approved, maintained, communicated and stored IT process, which can be used for training purpose. This complete documentation can be devastating for the organization in case it cannot adopt the changes in the business or is defective. It can be beneficial for the documentation of baseline activities of the business and legal purposes. Agile IT governance, on the other hand, focuses on working governance instead of documentation of the processes of governance. 
• COBIT is considered as a standard for IT governance as instead of execution IT focuses more on control. The control naturally encourages the need for contract negotiation and documentation. On the contrary, Agile IT governance focuses on collaboration between individuals to ensure execution.
• According to COBIT, enterprises are made to adapt the things quickly with the help of tools and processes which can be effective like their creators but for a particular time period. But, in fact, the ability of the processes and tools to adapt the changes in the business systems lack with time. Agile IT governance defeats these challenges by emphasizing the interactions and individuals as they allow the teams to be flexible in handling the things and adapt the changes as per the prevailing circumstances. COBIT can also be helpful if it follows the principles of Agile of focusing on interactions and individuals instead of processes and tools.
• In order to satisfy the objectives of the business COBIT focuses on the compliance with the rules, regulations and documented contracts for a business process instead of collaboration. In fact, the word contract leads to withholding productivity of a business instead of improving it. Agile, on the other hand, focuses on the collaboration between the individuals, even if it also appreciates the value of the contract. COBIT can also be an effective IT governance framework if it focused on collaboration also.
• COBIT supports the strategy of an enterprise by delivering the services successfully. According to it the ownership of the deliverables and requirements should be clearly defined. There can be contradictory situation if you have to answer - How can you find out the individuals with the right level of expertise required in the presence of several managers in an organization? How to maintain organizational relationships to get direction of the requirement and define ownership clearly? The answers to these questions depend on to whom you are asking them. The identification of wrong ownership can cause faulty governance is the only point where COBIT can benefit the business. This risk has been reduced in Agile IT governance framework as it focuses on recognizing the right person as the suitable owner of the project at its right level.