Key Goal Indicators

The COBIT Framework expresses the objectives for IT in terms of the information criteria that the business needs in order to achieve the business objectives, which will usually be expressed in terms of:

• Availability of systems and services
• Absence of integrity and confidentiality risks
• Cost-efficiency of processes and operations
• Confirmation of reliability, effectiveness and compliance.

The goal for IT can then be expressed as delivering the information that the business needs in line with these criteria. The degree of importance of each of the above information criteria is a function of the business and the environment the enterprise operates in.

Key Goal Indicators should not be vague, but measurable as a number or percentage. These measures should show that information and technology are contributing to the mission and strategy of the organization. Because goals and targets are specific to the enterprise and its environment, many Key Goal Indicators have been expressed with a direction, e.g., increased availability, decreased cost. In practice, management will have to set specific targets which need to be met, taking into account past performance and future goals.

A set of generic Key Goal Indicators is listed below that is usually applicable to all IT processes:

• Achieving targeted return on investment or business value benefits
• Enhanced performance management
• Reduced IT risks
• Productivity improvements
• Integrated supply chains
• Standardised processes
• Boost of service delivery
• Reaching new and satisfying existing customers
• Creation of new service delivery channels
• Availability of bandwidth, computing power and IT delivery mechanisms fitting the business, and their uptime
• and downtime
• Meeting requirements and expectations of the customer of the process on budget and on time
• Number of customers and cost per customer served
• Adherence to industry standards.