Published:
July 30 2009, 11:38 AM
|
5 Comment(s)
by
Robert Stroud
Last week it was my great honor to be re-elected as an International Vice President of ISACA and the ITGI at ISACA's 40th birthday celebration. Formed 40 years ago as the EDP Auditors Association ISACA has grown dramatically not only numerically, but also in terms of the consistencies represented.
Many people ask me why I volunteer much of my spare time to ISACA as a member. To answer that question, I'd like to paint a picture of the organization, its work and contributions back to the industry that I summarized from my friend Lynn Lawton in her final address as President to the membership.
At the Annual General Meeting, Lynn shared with the membership some of the successes of the movement. For instance, membership has more than doubled in the last six years with a significant increase in every one of those years, including 13% growth in 2008. The chapters have continued to grow and at the end of calendar year 2008, ISACA has more than 180 chapters in 70 countries.
ISACA offers members, who may be auditors, security, risk or governance professionals or IT Management (one of the fastest growing domains), multiple value points including education, certification, networking with peers and of course my favorite benefit, access to intellectual property.
Certifications
ISACA offers three certifications, all have continued on their very successful path.
CISA - More than 28,000 registered for 2008 exams. More than 60,000 certified around the world.
CISM - 5,000-plus registered for the 2008 exams, and 10,000-plus certified since inception only six years ago.
Both certifications continue to receive ANSI accreditation and are included on the US Department of Defense's short list of approved credentials for both its own information assurance personnel and the personnel of its vendors.
CGEIT, ISACA's newest certification, was offered for the first time in December 2008, with more than 300 registered worldwide. Due to the grandfathering period, which received unprecedented response, more than 4,000 have been certified since the program was introduced.
Publications
COBIT and VALIT Deliverables included:
- - Aligning COBIT® 4.1, ITIL® V3, ISO/IEC 27002 for Business Benefit
- - COBIT Mapping: Mapping of ITIL V3 With COBIT 4.1
- - Service Managers
- - Enterprise Value: Governance of IT Investments, Getting Started with Value Management
- - Enterprise Value: Governance of IT Investments, The Val IT Framework 2.0
Other books:
- - Defining Information Security Management Position Requirements: Guidance for Executives and Managers
- - Identifying and Aligning Business Goals and IT Goals: Full Research Report
- - Information Security Career Progression Survey Results
- - Information Security Governance: Guidance for Information Security Managers
- - ITAFTM: A Professional Practices Framework for IT Assurance, IT Governance and Process Maturity
- - IT Governance Global Status Report 2008
- - IT Governance Roundtable: IT Staffing Challenges
- - Top Business/Technology Survey Results
- - Understanding How Business Goals Drive IT Goals
- - Unlocking Value: An Executive Primer On the Critical Role of IT Governance
Standards
ISACA has also released a series of standards for the IT profession. Multiple new standards and guidelines were issued in 2008, additionally a number of exposure drafts were sent out for comment - these are examples of the contributions of many to the collective good of the whole membership.
Web site
The ISACA Web site is currently in revision. The site is being developed in collaboration with the membership to ensure that ISACA is ready leverage the site as one of major communication and collaboration vehicles.
One of the activities undertaken was the contest we held for members to "design the Web site" and many great suggestions came from the focus group discussions and user testing sessions.
The major objectives of the web site, which is expected to go live in 2010, are:
- Web 2.0/collaboration
- Search, personalization, enhanced online experience
- Enhancing the overall value of the services provided to end users on the web site.
- Site reliability, database integration, password management, e-commerce management
- Support for the Chapters in setting up their own websites
This development is a major undertaking and in a predominantly volunteer organization the membership have really contributed along with a great staff and partners who are contributing (more on this in a future blog post as I will be continuing on the Web Oversight Taskforce).
STRATEGY (more on the strategy is available on my previous blog post)
The world doesn't stand still and either does ISACA. Over the last year we spent a significant amount of time and effort on our strategic direction, researching ourselves and our business environment to develop a strategy that I believe will take us well into the next three to five years. The strategy builds on our strengths, and focuses on providing practical, pragmatic material for an increasingly diverse constituency; building and expanding on our existing IP; and streamlining our operations to enable us to deliver more products on a timely basis.
I included the following slide from Lynn's presentation which summarized the execution of the strategy exceptionally well and I plan to blog more on the future of COBIT in the very near future.
As you can see, ISACA is moving forward and places members and member benefit as the top priority and it will be an honor for me to continue serving the members in this my third year on the ISACA Board of Directors. I cannot express my thanks to all the members of ISACA who have made 2008 a fantastic successful year no matter where you are. I have been fortunate to visit many of you in the last year and I can honestly say that each of you has made a lasting impression on me.
I would like to give a personal thank you to each member of the COBIT Steering Committee as we all move onto to new roles in accelerating the rollout of the new strategy - each of you has given great service and is appreciated, your names live on inside the front covers of the publications.
Also a huge thank you to the staff at ISACA who work tirelessly for the members, having recently seen them in action when visiting the offices they do a great job,
So if you need more information on ISACA please visit the website http://www.isaca.org/ or if you want to simply ask me a question drop me a note - talking about ISACA is one of my favorite topics!
By: Robert Stroud
Robert Stroud is Vice President and IT Service Management and IT Governance Evangelist at CA. In this role, he helps ensure that the company’s solutions adhere to best practices and mentors organizations on driving maximum business value from their ITIL initiatives.
A 25 year IT veteran, Robert...
Read More..