December 2005 - COBIT ^® 4.0

IT Governance Institute is extremely pleased to announce the release of a new key component of its IT governance library: COBIT 4.0.

COBIT 4.0 is the first update of the COBIT content since COBIT 3rd Edition was released in 2000. This new version reflects increased harmonization with other detailed standards, greater emphasis on IT governance, streamlining of concepts and language, and detailed analysis of metrics concepts, among other improvements. The new volume, consisting of more than 200 pages, includes an executive overview, the framework, the core content (high-level control objective, detailed control objectives, management guidelines and maturity model) for each of the 34 processes, and several appendices.

COBIT 4.0 represents the efforts of literally hundreds of volunteer experts from around the world. It is offered as a free download from www.isaca.org/cobit, and, as a special benefit for ISACA members, it is available to members exclusively for a two-week period. On 16 December, the download will become available publicly.

For more information on COBIT 4.0, please visit www.isaca.org/cobit.

September 2005 - IT Governance Domain Practices and Competencies

In 2004, the IT Governance Institute, in conjunction with Lighthouse Global, surveyed 200 IT professionals from 14 countries in the Americas, Asia- Pacific and Europe. These executive briefings are based on the results of this survey, along with additional research into the five areas of IT governance. The first four of the five briefings in the series are available to ISACA members as complimentary downloads on the ITGI and ISACA web sites, and for purchase as e-books or in hard copy at the ISACA Bookstore, www.isaca.org/bookstore. The fifth publication in the series will be available this month to members only and in October to the general public. The books include:

• Optimising Value Creation From IT Investments focuses on a frequently raised issue in most organizations, the challenge of achieving adequate returns on IT investment.
• Information Risks: Whose Business Are They? focuses on information risk management, which is a key IT governance area and a top management concern.
• Governance of Outsourcing focuses on outsourcing IT activities, which has become common practice around the world as organizations strive for more effective and efficient IT services. The research examines the best practices for the governance of outsourcing.
• Measuring and Demonstrating the Value of IT focuses on performance measurement issues, including governance importance and best practices for IT performance management.
• IT Alignment: Who Is in Charge? focuses on ensuring IT alignment with business objectives and examines the effectiveness of an IT strategy committee or IT council in helping achieve IT alignment.