COBIT 5 and the Process Capability Model. Improvements Provided for IT Governance Process

IT governance and management in an enterprise plays an important part in generating value for the stakeholders [1]. COBIT 5 is a framework for the governance and management of IT enterprises. In 2012 the latest version of this framework was released introducing important features. One of those features is the evolution from COBIT 4.1 Maturity Model to COBIT 5 Process Capability Model. This paper will deal with the evolution of this model and will analyse the attributes which characterise the model in the recent version of the framework. What are the improvements that COBIT 5 provides for IT governance processes? Starting from a general overview of this framework, the structure of the Process Capability Model will be analysed in detail in this paper. Then, a comparison with the Maturity Model of the previous version of the COBIT framework will be discussed. At the end of this paper, it will be seen that the new Process Capability approach results in an improvement of the assessment process; and in particular, in the formality and the rigor of the assessment. With the Process Capability approach a major focus on the purpose of the processes is implemented resulting in a better alignment with the current best practices such as ITIL and TOGAF.