The good news about adopting best practices is that corporations aren’t limited to one method. The bad news is that companies will most likely need to adopt more than one best-practice framework - or at least parts of many - if they want a complete, effective set of management-process guidelines.

A related concern is that when network managers realize that multiple standards may be required to achieve their goals, they may become overwhelmed trying to discern the differences among popular frameworks.

Best-practice frameworks, such as IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) and Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology (COBIT), have been around for years. For the most part, these frameworks should bring consistency and efficiency to the various aspects of IT, such as application development, help desk, network operations, security, and service delivery and support. Compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and numerous other regulatory standards is another obvious benefit - and is often the impetus for IT executives to start looking at process frameworks.

Other - and perhaps longer-term - gains are the cost cuts and labor reductions that result when an IT shop deploys processes to which all staff members adhere. Best-practice nirvana occurs when IT is able to align with business by helping network managers translate their services into business terms and assign a business-relevant priority to their tasks.

According to Forrester Research, best-practice frameworks will see broad adoption in 2006. The firm suggests that in many cases, ITIL and COBIT - along with the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) and ISO 17799 - should be adopted in concert. ITIL addresses service delivery and support; COBIT covers the broadest spectrum of IT governance; CMM, which is used frequently by application developers, shows how IT shops rate in terms of maturity compared with best-known processes; and ISO 17799 proposes security-management measures.

"Most of these frameworks are not mutually exclusive and are most effective when used in combination with one another," says Craig Symons, a principal analyst with Forrester, in a report released this month. "The road to a comprehensive IT governance framework involves understanding the differences among the frameworks and when to apply each framework."