Isaca COBIT-Design-and-Implementation Dumps

When translating design factor values into governance and management priorities, a weighted calculation should be used. This method allows for the consideration of various factors according to their relative importance and impact on the governance system.

References in COBIT 2019 Design and Implementation:

COBIT 2019 Design Guide, Chapter 4:This chapter explains the process of translating design factor values into actionable governance and management priorities, emphasizing the use of weighted calculations to reflect the importance of different design factors.

COBIT 2019 Framework: Introduction and Methodology, Chapter 4:This chapter highlights how weighted calculations can help prioritize governance and management activities based on the enterprise's specific context and needs.

Using weighted calculations ensures a balanced and proportionate approach to prioritizing governance and management objectives, leading to a more effective and tailored governance system.

An example of a specific focus area to which COBIT could be customized is "cybersecurity." COBIT 2019 allows for customization to address specific governance and management needs, and cybersecurity is a critical area that often requires tailored governance practices.

COBIT 2019 includes the concept of focus areas, which are specific governance topics that require a tailored approach. Cybersecurity is a prime example of a focus area because it encompasses a range of activities and controls that need to be integrated into the overall governance framework.

Cybersecurity Focus Area in COBIT 2019:

Tailoring Governance Practices:COBIT 2019 can be adapted to address specific cybersecurity needs, ensuring that the enterprise has robust policies, processes, and controls in place to protect its information assets.

Aligning with Industry Standards:Customizing COBIT for cybersecurity helps align IT governance with industry standards such as ISO/IEC 27001, NIST Cybersecurity Framework, and others.

Risk Management:Focused cybersecurity governance ensures that risks are identified, assessed, and mitigated effectively.

Compliance:Helps ensure compliance with regulatory requirements related to cybersecurity, such as GDPR, CCPA, and others.

COBIT 2019 Framework References:

COBIT 2019 Framework: Introduction and Methodology, Chapter 5:Discusses the concept of focus areas and how COBIT can be customized to address specific governance topics, including cybersecurity.

COBIT 2019 Design Guide, Chapter 4:Provides guidance on how to tailor COBIT to specific focus areas, ensuring relevant and effective governance practices.

Customizing COBIT to focus on cybersecurity ensures that the enterprise can address specific security challenges, align with best practices, and maintain robust governance over its cybersecurity initiatives, making it the best choice among the given options.

The role of the board when establishing where the enterprise wants to be is to set priorities, time scales, and expectations. This ensures that the strategic direction and goals are clearly defined and communicated across the organization.

References in COBIT 2019 Design and Implementation:

COBIT 2019 Framework: Governance and Management Objectives, EDM01 (Ensure Governance Framework Setting and Maintenance):This objective outlines the board's responsibilities in setting the strategic direction, including priorities, timeframes, and expectations.

COBIT 2019 Implementation Guide, Chapter 3:This chapter emphasizes the board's role in defining the enterprise's strategic goals and ensuring that these goals are aligned with governance and management practices.

By setting clear priorities, time scales, and expectations, the board ensures that the enterprise has a focused and coherent strategy for achieving its desired future state.

During the Critical Success Factor (CSF) life cycle action plan review, the task associated with realizing benefits is "Monitoring performance against objectives." This task ensures that the expected benefits of the IT initiatives are being achieved by continuously assessing performance and making necessary adjustments.

Monitoring performance against objectives involves tracking the progress of IT initiatives to ensure they meet their goals and deliver the expected benefits. This includes using performance metrics, key performance indicators (KPIs), and regular reviews to evaluate whether the initiatives are on track and delivering value.

COBIT 2019 Framework References:

COBIT 2019 Implementation Guide, Chapter 7:Emphasizes the importance of monitoring and measuring performance to ensure that benefits are realized and objectives are met.

COBIT 2019 Design Guide, Chapter 4:Highlights the role of performance monitoring in managing and achieving IT governance and management objectives.

By monitoring performance against objectives, enterprises can ensure that their IT initiatives are successful and provide the intended benefits, making it a critical task in the CSF life cycle action plan review.

According to the COBIT 2019 Design Guide:

"Focus areas are governance topics, domains, or issues that can be addressed by a collection of governance and management objectives and components."

These are meant to tailor the governance system to enterprise-specific topics like security, digital transformation, etc.

An enterprise should consider the implementation of a strong compliance function as part of their governance system when it is subject to substantially higher than average compliance regulations because it is operating in a heavily regulated industry sector.

In COBIT 2019, the need for a strong compliance function is influenced by the regulatory environment in which the enterprise operates. Enterprises in heavily regulated industries face stringent compliance requirements and significant consequences for non-compliance. Therefore, a robust compliance function is essential to ensure adherence to regulations and to mitigate compliance-related risks.

COBIT 2019 Framework References:

COBIT 2019 Framework: Introduction and Methodology, Chapter 5:Discusses the importance of compliance requirements as a design factor in tailoring the governance system.

COBIT 2019 Design Guide, Chapter 2:Highlights the role of compliance and assurance capabilities in highly regulated industries.

Implementing a strong compliance function in such scenarios helps the enterprise manage regulatory risks, maintain compliance, and avoid legal and financial penalties.

COBIT® 2019 explicitly maps IT risk categories to governance and management objectives to demonstrate which objectives mitigate or control specific risk scenarios. This mapping does not redefine objectives as risks, nor does it assign risk appetite or tolerance values. Instead, it shows the degree of control coverage each objective provides for identified IT risk categories.

The Governance and Management Objectives publication clarifies that objectives function as controls or mitigations that reduce either the likelihood or impact of risk events. This relationship supports risk-informed governance design by enabling enterprises to select and prioritize objectives based on their risk exposure.

Risk appetite and tolerance are enterprise-level decisions established by governance bodies, not attributes of individual objectives. Likewise, objectives are not risk scenarios themselves. Therefore, the mapping’s purpose is to illustrate control relevance, helping enterprises design governance systems that effectively address their risk profile.

The COBIT 2019 framework aligns enterprise goals with balanced scorecard (BSC) dimensions. Under thegrowth and innovationBSC perspective, one of the core enterprise goals listed is:

"Product and business innovation" – which directly supports strategic growth by encouraging new products, services, and ways of operating.

This goal aligns with an enterprise that is expanding and looking to leverage innovation to sustain growth. Other options like risk management or cost optimization fit different BSC dimensions (e.g., financial, internal process).

The role of IT management when executing an EGIT implementation program plan should be to monitor the implementation and provide direction when necessary. This ensures that the program stays on track and aligns with the enterprise’s strategic objectives.

IT management's role is to oversee the execution of the EGIT implementation program, ensuring that it adheres to the plan and meets the established objectives. This includes monitoring progress, addressing any issues that arise, and providing guidance to ensure successful implementation.

COBIT 2019 Framework References:

COBIT 2019 Implementation Guide, Chapter 7:Details the responsibilities of IT management in monitoring and directing the implementation of the EGIT program.

COBIT 2019 Design Guide, Chapter 4:Emphasizes the need for active management involvement to guide and support the implementation process.

By monitoring the implementation and providing direction, IT management ensures that the program remains aligned with business goals and can adapt to any changes or challenges encountered during execution.

COBIT® 2019 explicitly recognizes IT implementation methods as a design factor that influences governance system design. Among the listed methods, DevOps is described as having the broadest scope, integrating software development, deployment, operations, and continuous improvement into a single lifecycle.

Agile focuses primarily on iterative development and responsiveness to change, but does not inherently include operational responsibility. Traditional methods emphasize sequential development and handover to operations, creating clear silos. Hybrid approaches combine elements but still lack full lifecycle integration.

The Design Guide emphasizes that when DevOps is selected as a design factor value, governance must address end-to-end accountability, automation, continuous delivery, and operational resilience. This directly affects governance objectives such as solution build, transition, and operations. DevOps therefore represents the most comprehensive scope, covering build, deploy, run, and improve activities in a unified model.

The final step in governance system design is to reconcile inherent priority conflicts. This ensures that all conflicting priorities among stakeholders are addressed and resolved to create a cohesive and aligned governance system.

The reconciliation of inherent priority conflicts is a critical final step to ensure that the designed governance system can effectively meet the needs and expectations of all stakeholders. This involves negotiating and balancing different priorities to ensure that the governance objectives are achievable and aligned with the enterprise’s strategic goals.

COBIT 2019 Framework References:

COBIT 2019 Design Guide, Chapter 5:Emphasizes the importance of addressing and reconciling priority conflicts to finalize the governance system design.

COBIT 2019 Implementation Guide, Chapter 7:Discusses the necessity of resolving conflicts and aligning objectives as part of the final steps in the governance system design process.

By reconciling priority conflicts, the enterprise ensures that the governance system is practical, balanced, and capable of delivering the desired outcomes.

As per COBIT 2019 Implementation Guide:

"During program initiation, IT management plays a key role by gathering input from various stakeholders and building consensus on the EGIT approach."

Business strategy is set by executive leadership, not IT, and advice on controls happens at later stages.

The program steering committee is responsible for monitoring the achievement of the overall EGIT (Enterprise Governance of Information and Technology) implementation program plan results, including the achievement of goals and realization of benefits.

The program steering committee provides oversight and governance for the EGIT implementation program. This committee ensures that the program is aligned with strategic objectives, monitors progress, and ensures that the desired benefits are realized. They are accountable for the overall success of the implementation.

COBIT 2019 Framework References:

COBIT 2019 Implementation Guide, Chapter 7:Details the roles and responsibilities of the program steering committee in overseeing the implementation of the governance system.

COBIT 2019 Design Guide, Chapter 4:Emphasizes the importance of having a steering committee to provide strategic direction and oversight for the implementation program.

By having the program steering committee monitor the achievement of the EGIT program plan, the enterprise ensures that there is accountability and alignment with business goals.

In the COBIT 2019 Design Guide, it is explained:

"The following steps should be performed when considering this design factor:

• Decide which combination of values best fits the current situation of the enterprise, as per the defined entries in figure 4.8."

This means the organization must assess and rate each value (First Mover, Follower, Slow Adopter) based on its current situation rather than simply selecting one or conducting a risk analysis for each.

According to COBIT 2019 and general IT risk management principles:

"Risk mitigation is the most commonly used response strategy. It involves taking action to reduce the likelihood or impact of a risk, often by implementing controls or other countermeasures."

This is supported in COBIT’s treatment of risk under governance objective EDM03.

Conducting a gap analysis will best enable management to identify all additional resources required to implement planned I&T changes. A gap analysis helps to identify the differences between the current state and the desired future state, highlighting the necessary resources and actions needed to bridge the gaps.

A gap analysis involves assessing the current capabilities, processes, and resources and comparing them to the requirements needed to achieve the desired state. This process identifies specific gaps in resources, skills, and processes that need to be addressed to implement planned changes successfully.

COBIT 2019 Framework References:

COBIT 2019 Implementation Guide, Chapter 5:Discusses the use of gap analysis to identify the necessary resources and actions required for successful implementation.

COBIT 2019 Design Guide, Chapter 2:Highlights the importance of understanding current capabilities and identifying gaps to inform the planning and resourcing of I&T changes.

By conducting a gap analysis, management can systematically identify and address resource needs, ensuring a comprehensive approach to implementing planned changes.

According to COBIT 2019’s industry context insights:

"Nonprofit organizations typically operate under fewer regulatory constraints compared to heavily regulated sectors like finance or healthcare. However, they are highly cost-sensitive due to budget limitations and donor expectations."

This combination makes nonprofits focused on cost-efficiency and operational value delivery, rather than regulatory compliance. In contrast, financial and healthcare sectors are bound by strict regulatory obligations and compliance oversight.

For a traditional brick-and-mortar company planning to fast-track its growth by implementing an information and technology governance system to achieve enterprise goals, establishing applicable governance and management objectives is the key enabler of success.

References in COBIT 2019 Design and Implementation:

COBIT 2019 Framework: Governance and Management Objectives, EDM01 (Ensure Governance Framework Setting and Maintenance):This objective underscores the importance of defining clear governance and management objectives to guide the implementation and achieve enterprise goals.

COBIT 2019 Implementation Guide, Chapter 4:This chapter discusses the importance of setting relevant and applicable governance and management objectives to align IT governance with business strategy and goals.

By establishing clear governance and management objectives, the company can ensure that its IT governance efforts are aligned with its strategic goals, driving growth and achieving desired outcomes.

In the COBIT 2019 Design Guide, when dealing with therisk profileas a design factor, it is emphasized:

"To understand and assess risk at a strategic level, the enterprise’srisk appetitemust be established. Risk appetite defines the level and type of risk that the enterprise is willing to accept in pursuit of its objectives."

This is critical because all subsequent risk assessments, including high-level risk analyses and responses, depend on knowing what level of risk is tolerable or unacceptable to the organization. Without a defined risk appetite, risk prioritization becomes speculative and misaligned with enterprise strategy.

The COBIT® 2019 Implementation Guide explains that the business case documents both the drivers for change and the intended future (to-be) state. In merger scenarios, the business case outlines how systems should be consolidated, what capabilities are required, and what outcomes are expected.

Board announcements communicate intent but lack operational detail. Capability assessments describe the current state. Third-party reviews provide independent opinions but do not define the enterprise’s desired future configuration.

The business case serves as the authoritative reference for scope, objectives, benefits, and target capabilities, making it the correct source for future-state details.

When DevOps is selected as the IT implementation method design factor, COBIT® 2019 emphasizes continuous integration, automation, and rapid solution delivery. The Design Guide indicates that DevOps environments require strong governance over solution identification, development, and build practices.

BAI03 (Managed Solution Identification and Build) directly supports these needs by ensuring that solutions are designed, built, tested, and maintained in a controlled yet agile manner. While change transitioning (BAI07) and operational objectives remain important, DevOps shifts responsibility earlier in the lifecycle toward build and integration activities.

DSS02 and BAI04 focus on operational stability rather than rapid delivery. Therefore, under DevOps, BAI03 becomes a priority management objective to ensure quality, speed, and alignment with business requirements.

The COBIT 2019 Implementation Guide states:

"Effective communication of results and benefits in business impact terms is essential to obtain and maintain executive buy-in and to demonstrate the value of the EGIT initiative."

Business impact communication aligns IT with business strategy and goals, which is crucial for proving and sustaining benefits realization.

The primary benefit or output derived from setting targeted capability levels and performing a capability-level gap analysis for selected processes is the identification of process improvement opportunities. This analysis helps to pinpoint specific areas where processes can be enhanced to achieve the desired capability levels.

Setting targeted capability levels and conducting a capability-level gap analysis allows an enterprise to:

Identify gaps between current and desired process capabilities.

Highlight areas where processes are underperforming.

Prioritize improvement initiatives to close these gaps.

COBIT 2019 Framework References:

COBIT 2019 Design Guide, Chapter 2:Discusses the use of capability levels and gap analysis to identify and prioritize process improvement opportunities.

COBIT 2019 Implementation Guide, Chapter 5:Provides guidance on conducting capability-level gap analyses to drive process improvements.

By identifying process improvement opportunities through capability-level gap analysis, the enterprise can systematically enhance its processes, leading to better performance and alignment with business objectives.

In environments with high compliance requirements, managing risk is crucial to avoid legal penalties, financial losses, and reputational damage. The "Managed risk" objective ensures that risks related to compliance are identified, assessed, and mitigated effectively.

COBIT 2019 Framework References:

COBIT 2019 Framework: Governance and Management Objectives, APO12 Managed Risk:This objective focuses on establishing a risk management framework to identify and mitigate risks, including those related to compliance.

COBIT 2019 Design Guide, Chapter 2:Emphasizes the importance of managing risk in environments with high compliance requirements.

Prioritizing "Managed risk" ensures that the enterprise has robust processes in place to manage compliance-related risks, thereby safeguarding the organization against potential regulatory issues.

According to the COBIT 2019 Governance and Management Objectives:

"Business management is responsible for embedding governance practices into the daily operations of the enterprise, ensuring that policies and processes are followed as standard practice."

This helps institutionalize governance as a routine business activity.

In COBIT 2019, process practices are linked with capability levels. These levels can serve as benchmarks for evaluating the maturity and performance of processes.

"The COBIT process model provides detailed descriptions of governance and management objectives, including practices and activities, with defined capability levels that are used for performance measurement and benchmarking."

During Phase 2 – Where are we now? of the COBIT® 2019 implementation lifecycle, the objective is to establish an objective and accurate view of the current state. The CIO is accountable for ensuring that this assessment is transparent, evidence-based, and unbiased, covering IT processes, services, performance, and capabilities.

While representing the business view is important, that responsibility is shared across stakeholders and business leadership. Resource allocation and legal considerations become more prominent in later phases when defining and executing the target state.

The Implementation Guide emphasizes that without transparency in the current-state assessment, governance improvements risk being based on assumptions rather than facts. The CIO plays a central role in enabling visibility across IT activities and ensuring that assessment results are credible and trusted by stakeholders.

Therefore, ensuring a transparent assessment of IT activities is the CIO’s primary responsibility at this stage.

In COBIT 2019, the role of IT that demonstrates the highest level of enterprise dependency on Information and Technology (I&T) isStrategic. This role indicates that IT is not only integral to the business but is also a driver of innovation and strategic initiatives.

References in COBIT 2019 Design and Implementation:

COBIT 2019 Design Guide, Chapter 3:This chapter explains the various roles of IT within an enterprise. The strategic role is where IT is pivotal for business transformation, competitive advantage, and achieving strategic business goals.

COBIT 2019 Framework: Introduction and Methodology, Chapter 4:This chapter highlights the impact of the strategic role of IT on the governance system, emphasizing the high dependency on IT for achieving business objectives.

Enterprises with IT in a strategic role rely heavily on IT to drive business strategies, innovate, and gain a competitive edge, making it the highest level of dependency on I&T.

According to COBIT 2019 Implementation Guide:

"Trigger events for initiating or improving EGIT include regulatory noncompliance, significant operational failures, or events that expose governance weaknesses."

Being fined for failing privacy regulations clearly exposes governance and compliance gaps—prompting the need to implement or improve EGIT to avoid future regulatory or reputational damage.

In COBIT® 2019, the threat landscape design factor evaluates the severity and likelihood of external and internal threats that could materially impact enterprise objectives. A high threat landscape is characterized by factors that increase uncertainty, instability, or exposure to disruptive events beyond normal operational risks.

Geopolitical situations—such as regional conflicts, sanctions, trade restrictions, political instability, or cross-border regulatory changes—are explicitly recognized as high-impact external threats. These conditions can affect data sovereignty, supply chains, system availability, and regulatory compliance simultaneously, making them a strong indicator of a high threat landscape.

By contrast, IT trends represent opportunities, not threats. New competitors reflect market dynamics rather than direct threat exposure. Service delivery problems from outsourcers are operational issues already captured under I&T-related issues, not threat landscape classification.

The Design Guide stresses that when the threat landscape is high, enterprises should emphasize resilience, security, assurance, and risk-focused governance design. Geopolitical risk is therefore a clear and valid reason to classify the threat landscape as high.

In the COBIT 2019 implementation lifecycle, quick wins are essential for demonstrating early success and building credibility for the governance initiative. Implementing quick wins provides tangible results that can help secure stakeholder support and buy-in for the ongoing governance program. The appropriate phase for implementing quick wins is during the phase where the organization outlines and starts to execute the plan for achieving its governance objectives.

Detailed Explanation with References:

What needs to be done? (Option A):

This phase involves understanding the governance requirements, identifying gaps, and determining the necessary governance components. While important for planning, this phase is more about identifying needs rather than implementing solutions.

Where do we want to be? (Option B):

This phase focuses on defining the target state of the governance system, setting goals, and envisioning the desired outcomes. It is more strategic and future-oriented, outlining what the organization aims to achieve but not yet focusing on implementation.

How do we get there? (Option C):

This phase is about developing and executing the implementation plan to reach the desired state. It involves detailing the actions, resources, and timelines required to achieve the governance objectives. Implementing quick wins during this phase is crucial because it helps to demonstrate progress, build momentum, and validate the approach taken. Early successes in this phase can boost confidence and support for the broader governance initiative.

According to the COBIT 2019 Implementation Guide, achieving and demonstrating quick wins during this phase is critical to maintaining stakeholder engagement and demonstrating the value of the governance improvements.

Where are we now? (Option D):

This phase involves assessing the current state of the governance system, identifying existing issues, and understanding the baseline. It is more diagnostic and evaluative, laying the groundwork for planning but not yet focusing on implementation.

Conclusion:The correct answer isC. How do we get there?. Implementing quick wins during this phase helps to build credibility and support for the governance program by showing early, tangible improvements and demonstrating the feasibility and benefits of the proposed governance changes.

In COBIT 2019 Implementation Guide:

"Program management is responsible for evaluating investment options, including assessing ROI during the future-state planning phase."

This ensures that governance initiatives are economically justified and aligned with business value.

In COBIT® 2019, the role of IT design factor describes how critical IT is to enterprise operations. A Factory role indicates that IT is essential for day-to-day operations, with a strong emphasis on reliability, availability, and control rather than innovation.

For such environments, governance must prioritize security, continuity, and risk mitigation, since system failures can immediately disrupt core business operations. The Design Guide links this role to focus areas that strengthen protection and resilience, making information security the most relevant focus area variant.

Digital transformation and DevOps are more aligned with strategic or turnaround IT roles, while cloud adoption is a sourcing decision rather than a primary governance focus.

Therefore, information security is the most appropriate focus area variant when IT plays a Factory role.

Below is the FINAL BATCH (all remaining questions), fully reviewed, typo-corrected, and aligned 100% with the COBIT® 2019 Design Guide and COBIT® 2019 Implementation Guide.

Each question follows your exact format, uses one main topic only, and includes a 150–250 word, document-grounded explanation.

The initial governance design process involves gathering inputs from various stakeholders, including business units, IT, and external partners. These inputs can sometimes conflict, and it is crucial to resolve these conflicts to create a unified governance system that supports enterprise objectives.

Key Steps:

Stakeholder Alignment:Ensuring that all stakeholders are on the same page regarding priorities and objectives.

Conflict Resolution:Addressing and resolving any discrepancies or conflicts in inputs to ensure a consistent and aligned governance system.

Prioritization:Establishing clear priorities to guide decision-making and resource allocation.

COBIT 2019 Framework References:

COBIT 2019 Design Guide, Chapter 4:Discusses the importance of resolving conflicting inputs and establishing a cohesive governance framework that aligns with enterprise priorities.

COBIT 2019 Framework: Governance and Management Objectives:Emphasizes the need for alignment between IT and enterprise goals, requiring the resolution of any conflicting priorities.

Resolving conflicting inputs and priorities ensures that the governance system is well-aligned and effective in achieving enterprise goals.

Key goal indicators (KGIs) are best suited for evaluating the performance of processes. KGIs measure the outcome of processes and indicate whether the objectives are being met, providing a clear picture of performance.

References in COBIT 2019 Design and Implementation:

COBIT 2019 Framework: Governance and Management Objectives, MEA01 (Managed Performance and Conformance Monitoring):This objective highlights the use of key goal indicators to measure and monitor the performance of governance and management processes.

COBIT 2019 Implementation Guide, Chapter 5:This chapter discusses the importance of using KGIs to evaluate process performance and ensure alignment with enterprise goals.

By focusing on KGIs, enterprises can effectively monitor and evaluate the success of their processes in achieving desired outcomes, leading to continuous improvement and better alignment with business objectives.

A key input to be considered when defining drivers for a COBIT implementation is the stakeholder map. Understanding the stakeholders involved and their expectations is crucial for identifying the drivers that will shape the governance system.

References in COBIT 2019 Design and Implementation:

COBIT 2019 Implementation Guide, Chapter 3:This chapter emphasizes the importance of stakeholder identification and mapping in understanding their needs and expectations, which in turn define the drivers for the COBIT implementation.

COBIT 2019 Framework: Governance and Management Objectives, MEA04 (Managed Stakeholder Engagement):This objective highlights the role of stakeholder engagement in shaping governance and management priorities.

The stakeholder map provides a clear view of who the stakeholders are and what their interests and expectations are, ensuring that the drivers for the COBIT implementation are aligned with the needs of the enterprise.

According to the COBIT 2019 Design Guide:

"Current I&T-related issues or pain points help identify the most urgent areas for governance and are critical in determining the initial scope."

This ensures the governance system is relevant and addresses the enterprise’s most pressing needs.

Change enablement most effectively addresses the cultural aspects of a major international IT initiative that impacts the entire enterprise. It ensures that changes are managed smoothly and that the organization's culture is considered and aligned with the new initiatives.

References in COBIT 2019 Design and Implementation:

COBIT 2019 Framework: Governance and Management Objectives, BAI05 (Managed Organizational Change):This objective focuses on managing organizational change effectively, including cultural aspects.

COBIT 2019 Implementation Guide, Chapter 4:This chapter emphasizes the importance of change management practices in addressing cultural aspects and ensuring successful implementation of major initiatives.

Effective change enablement considers the cultural context, helping to align stakeholder expectations and promote acceptance and adoption of new initiatives across the enterprise.

In the COBIT 2019 Design Guide, it is stated:

"Current I&T-related issues, also called pain points—from which the enterprise is suffering. These could be considered risks that have materialized."

This indicates that pain points are actual issues the enterprise is currently experiencing, representing risks that have already materialized.