The COBIT 5 Foundation course helps the student prepare for a multiple-choice exam. However, the answer options offered on the exam are the not the only choices the learner should be making. Students who want to maximize the value they receive from the training have an array of decisions they must make about how to study and how to apply what they learn. This article outlines just a few of the decisions COBIT 5 Foundation students can make. It is about choices.
A. The Foundation Course Is Just the Basics
Many students enthusiastically enter the COBIT 5 Foundation training classroom ready to learn everything about COBIT. They are always slightly disappointed. The foundation training focuses only on the basics. Some discussions may arise that go into more depth than the foundation content, but students should keep in mind that the foundation training is not everything. The follow-up training courses—COBIT 5 Implementation and COBIT 5 Assessor—go further.
B. Main Message First
Student who do not understand the main message of COBIT 5 will have a hard time understanding the framework’s details. The main message of COBIT 5 is covered in the first portion of the course, yet I have had students who spend those first critical hours answering work emails (although they have been politely asked not to). These same students then have questions at the end of the course about the content they failed to heed at the beginning: “Why governance?” “How does COBIT fit in?” The answers in the main COBIT message explain it all.
C. Forget Your Organization to Pass the Exam
Students of COBIT 5 who focus only on improving governance at their organization are welcome to maintain that focus. But students who wish to pass the exam must let go of how governance is done in their organization and focus instead on the ideal world that COBIT 5 wants them to understand. This mindset will make it possible to pass the exam. After passing the exam, they can switch the focus to how to improve governance in their organization.
D. Make Arrangements to Practice What You Learn
When students return to work after training, many of them hear remarks from their managers such as, "I hope you had fun at your training, but your work is days behind now and you have 538 emails waiting, so get to work!” This does not instill motivation in them to improve the governance at their organization. A solution might be to discuss with management the possibility of transferring knowledge and ideas gained from the training even before the COBIT 5 Foundation training starts. Ask management for time to listen to the proposal.
E. Start With the Goals Cascade
The COBIT goals cascade has proven very useful for all kinds of businesses. The first step—getting a grip on the stakeholders—is difficult, but then the translation into business goals can be regularly adjusted. When that is understood, the translation into IT-related and enabler goals, with control objectives, is done. The big trick is to report from the bottom to the top again so all levels in the organization know what is going on. The continuous chain of starting on the stakeholder side and adjusting the business-detailed goals and control objectives can now be done successfully. When this mechanism is understood by user groups, the understanding of the IT role improves.
Erik van Eeden
Is an accredited COBIT 5 trainer who stepped into COBIT when version 5 arrived. He consults and trains COBIT users in Africa, Asia, Europe and South America. As member of the ISACA Netherlands Chapter board, he supports the spreading of COBIT among chapter members and the world. Accredited by APMG, he trains all levels COBIT: Foundation, Assessor and Implementation.