Using ALM tools to achieve IT governance and compliance

Governance and compliance have become important elements in the overall control and health of a large enterprise. These two elements have become mandated competencies for any enterprise that wants to stay in business in our present day’s global technology-centric environment. All public companies are mandated by Federal laws which include section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 that stands for establishing effective practices such as reporting and operational controls such as Change Management. There are quite a few procedures have a number of standards and frameworks that can help implement such practices which includes IEEE 12207 lifecycle processes, ISACA Cobit 4.1, SEI CMMI and the itSMF ITIL v 3.

The Sarbanes-Oxley law has given the right impetus for enterprises to review their reporting and operational controls. Yet there are quite a few enterprises who failed to achieve improved productivity through their effective implementation of these controls. An unsuccessful failed audit can have enterprises scrambling to quickly meet the letter of the law in order to stay compliant. Such instances may cause gross loss of competitive advantage. Implementing improved controls and processes can provide the enterprise with the potential to enhance their productivity and value.

Enterprises should engage such application lifecycle management tools that helps remove the ambiguity and realize improved productivity through the proper implementation of the Cobit 4.1 framework and, effortlessly aids enterprises to achieve the objectives of IT Governance and compliance. Such ALM tools when coupled with the right kind of requirements management tools can help enterprises define the exact tasks necessary to implement each of the control practices required to meet the control objective of “setting up formal change management procedures to handle in a standardized manner all requests (including maintenance and patches) for changes to applications, procedures, processes, system and service parameters, and the underlying platforms”. It can help develop, document, and promulgate a change management framework that specifies the policies and processes including the diverse roles and responsibilities, it can help classify and prioritize all changes based on business risk, authorize and approve all changes by the business process owners and IT and also help track the status of changes.

Optimized ALM tools can also help establish and maintain version control over all changes by assisting in the implementation of roles and responsibilities that involve business process owners and appropriate technical IT functions. Furthermore it can ensure appropriate segregation of duties. These tools can assist in establishing appropriate record management practices and audit trails to record key steps in the change management process and can help ensure timely closure of changes. These tools can help enterprises in allowing only authorized personnel to enter specific requested changes, organized by predefined categories.

Implementing IT Governance and compliance is all about confirming that things are done at the right time and in the right manner. It also concerns requirements traceability and providing visibility to all stakeholders.

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