Certified: The ISACA CGEIT Audio Course

In this episode, we’re going to connect a topic that often feels like an internal human resources task to something far more visible and consequential: whether the enterprise can actually deliver the outcomes it promises. New learners sometimes hear competency assessment and imagine a generic skills checklist, like counting certifications or tracking training hours, but that approach usually fails because it measures activity instead of capability. In governance, a competency assessment matters only when it tells leaders something useful about performance, risk, and delivery, which means it must link skills to the business outcomes the organization cares about. When that link is missing, organizations hire and train in ways that feel busy but do not reduce outages, do not improve delivery speed, and do not strengthen security where it matters most. The goal is to understand how to assess competencies so the enterprise can invest in people capabilities intentionally, the same way it invests in technology and processes.

Before we continue, a quick note: this audio course is a companion to our course companion books. The first book is about the exam and provides detailed information on how to pass it best. The second book is a Kindle-only eBook that contains 1,000 flashcards that can be used on your mobile device or Kindle. Check them both out at Cyber Author dot me, in the Bare Metal Study Guides Series.

A competency is not simply knowledge, and one of the first misunderstandings beginners must correct is confusing knowing about something with being able to do it reliably under real conditions. Knowing is important, but outcomes depend on performance, and performance depends on skills being applied consistently in context. For example, an organization may know that access should be controlled, but the outcome depends on whether teams can design roles, review access, respond to exceptions, and handle identity changes without creating gaps. Competency assessment is therefore about measuring readiness, not just measuring exposure, because exposure can be high while readiness is low. This matters in Governance of Enterprise IT (G E I T) because people capabilities are part of enterprise capability, and weak people capability becomes a bottleneck that technology cannot compensate for. When governance leaders understand competencies in outcome language, they can make more realistic plans, avoid overcommitting, and prioritize capability building where it will reduce risk and increase delivery reliability. Competency assessment becomes a governance tool, not an administrative routine, when it reveals whether the enterprise can execute.

The link to business outcomes must be explicit, because business outcomes are what leaders fund and what the enterprise is judged on. Outcomes can include reliable services, protected data, compliant operations, faster delivery of change, improved customer experience, and reduced operational cost. A competency assessment that does not reference outcomes tends to drift into generic categories like communication or teamwork, which can be useful but often fails to explain why a specific skill gap is a business risk. When the assessment is outcome-linked, a skill gap becomes a statement like we cannot recover services fast enough to meet customer expectations, or we cannot govern data definitions well enough to trust our analytics. Those statements make the conversation real, because leaders can see consequences. For beginners, it helps to treat outcomes as the scoreboard and competencies as the moves you must execute to win. You do not train randomly if you care about winning; you train based on the skills that most strongly influence the result. Governance applies the same logic by connecting competencies to the outcomes that matter most.

A practical way to build this link is to start with enterprise capabilities, because capabilities translate strategy into what the enterprise must be able to do repeatedly. If the enterprise strategy requires digital services to be reliable, then the underlying capability includes operational monitoring, incident response, change discipline, and capacity management. If the strategy requires strong data-driven decisions, the capability includes data stewardship, data quality control, and secure data handling practices. Competency assessment should then ask what skills are necessary to perform these capability elements at the expected level of maturity. This approach prevents a common problem where training focuses on what is trendy rather than what is needed. Beginners sometimes assume skills are independent, but in real delivery they are interdependent, and a missing skill in one area can break the whole capability. When competencies are mapped to capabilities, the assessment reveals which parts of the enterprise capability system are weak, and that makes improvement planning more targeted. This is how competency assessment becomes actionable rather than decorative.

Competency assessment also needs to recognize that skill is not only individual, because outcomes are often produced by teams and processes rather than by a single person’s expertise. An organization can hire excellent specialists, but if roles are unclear and handoffs are messy, outcomes remain weak. This is why competency assessments should consider how skills are distributed across teams and whether coverage exists for critical tasks. Coverage means not only having someone who can do a task, but having enough depth so the enterprise is not fragile when that person is absent, leaves, or is overloaded. Beginners can think of this as having only one person who knows how to restore a critical system; the organization may appear capable until that person is unavailable. Outcome-linked competency assessment therefore includes questions about redundancy, cross-training, and operational readiness, because resilience is a people capability as much as a technology capability. Governance uses these insights to reduce key-person risk and to support sustainable delivery. When competency assessment includes team coverage, leaders can plan more honestly and reduce hidden fragility.

Another important principle is that competency assessment should focus on observable behavior and performance indicators, not on self-reported confidence or vague impressions. People can sincerely believe they are competent, and they may have studied the topic, but outcomes require performance that holds up under real constraints and real time pressure. Observable indicators might include consistent change success, consistent incident handling, consistent documentation quality, and consistent adherence to data handling rules. This does not mean the assessment must be punitive or overly rigid; it means it must produce reliable information. A beginner-friendly way to understand this is to think of learning to drive, where reading a manual matters, but safe driving is proven through actual performance in varied conditions. Competency assessment should also recognize that performance can vary by environment, because a person may be competent when systems are stable but struggle when complexity and interruptions increase. Governance wants the truth about readiness, because readiness is what determines whether a plan will succeed. When the assessment relies on evidence, improvement decisions become more credible.

Skill levels are also not binary, and outcome-linked assessment works best when it captures progression rather than a simple pass or fail label. Many skills develop through stages, from basic awareness, to supervised practice, to independent performance, to the ability to coach others and improve the system. Beginners often assume organizations need only experts, but mature governance recognizes the value of balanced teams where novices are supported, intermediates carry routine work reliably, and advanced practitioners handle complex cases and lead improvement. The assessment should therefore describe what performance looks like at different levels for each outcome-linked competency. This supports staffing decisions because leaders can see whether a capability is supported by too many beginners and too few experienced practitioners, or vice versa. It also supports training decisions because the gap becomes specific, like moving from supervised execution to independent execution for a critical task. When competency levels are defined in performance terms, improvement becomes a plan, not a wish. Governance benefits because it can align resource investment to the maturity the enterprise actually needs.

The assessment must also reflect that different roles require different competency emphasis, because not everyone needs the same depth in every skill. A system administrator, a developer, a data steward, and a service manager may all touch security and reliability, but the competencies they need will differ in focus and detail. If governance uses a single generic assessment for everyone, it often produces confusion and resentment, and it fails to reveal the real gaps that affect outcomes. Outcome-linked competency assessment starts with the outcome, then asks which roles influence it, and then defines role-appropriate competencies that contribute to that outcome. This makes the assessment feel fair, because people are evaluated on what their role is expected to deliver. It also makes the assessment more accurate, because it does not punish someone for lacking skills irrelevant to their responsibilities. Beginners can think of this like a sports team, where each position requires different training even though everyone is working toward the same win. Governance uses role-aware assessment to align responsibility with ability.

A key challenge is avoiding the trap of measuring credentials as a substitute for measuring competence, because credentials can be useful signals but they are not the outcome. Certifications and courses can indicate exposure and commitment, but they do not guarantee that a person can apply skills within the enterprise’s specific environment and constraints. Outcome-linked assessment may still consider formal education, but it treats it as one input among others, and it validates competence through behavior and results. This matters for governance because leaders can be tempted to solve skill problems by funding training programs without ensuring the training changes performance. Training that does not change outcomes becomes a cost without capability improvement, and it can create false confidence that risks are addressed. Beginners should hear that competency is proven by consistent performance, not by attendance. A practical governance approach uses assessment to identify where training is needed, then measures whether performance improves afterward. This closes the loop between investment and outcome, which strengthens accountability.

Competency assessment also supports prioritization because it reveals which skill gaps are most damaging to enterprise outcomes and which gaps are merely inconvenient. If the enterprise is experiencing frequent outages, a gap in incident response and change discipline is likely higher priority than a gap in a niche tool skill. If the enterprise is struggling with compliance findings, gaps in data handling and evidence collection may be more urgent than deeper optimization skills. Outcome-linked assessment allows governance to rank skill gaps by their impact on outcomes and risk, which helps leaders allocate limited time and budget effectively. Beginners sometimes think fairness means equal training for all, but governance focuses on risk and value, meaning the organization invests first where outcomes are most threatened. This is not about ignoring people, it is about sequencing improvement so the enterprise becomes stable and capable. The assessment makes the case in plain language by connecting gaps to consequences leaders understand. When skill development is prioritized wisely, the enterprise builds momentum and reduces crises that would otherwise consume capacity.

A mature competency assessment also considers how skills interact with process and technology, because sometimes a performance problem looks like a skill gap but is actually caused by poor tools or unclear processes. For example, if change failures are frequent, it might be partly due to insufficient testing skill, but it might also be due to unstable environments or unclear deployment procedures. Outcome-linked assessment should therefore be careful not to blame individuals for systemic issues, and it should capture whether the environment supports competent performance. Beginners can think of this as judging a student’s writing while giving them a broken keyboard; performance is affected by the system. Governance benefits from this nuance because it prevents wasted investment in training when the real fix is process improvement or tool stabilization. At the same time, the assessment can reveal where skills are needed to improve the system itself, such as the ability to design better processes or automate controls. When assessment includes context, it becomes a diagnostic tool rather than a scorecard. That diagnostic value is what makes it useful for governing people capabilities responsibly.

Another essential aspect is embedding competency assessment into the enterprise’s planning rhythm so it becomes part of how decisions are made, not a one-off initiative. If assessment happens only during hiring or during annual reviews, it often fails to influence strategy execution and resource planning. Outcome-linked assessment should inform decisions about whether initiatives are feasible, what sequencing is realistic, and what support is required to deliver safely. For example, if a planned initiative requires data governance skills that are currently weak, governance can either invest in building that competency first, adjust the plan, or source expertise temporarily while developing internal capacity. This prevents a common failure where ambitious plans are approved without the skills needed to execute them, leading to delays and risk. Beginners should understand that capability includes people, and people capability is a constraint just like budget and technology. When competency assessment is part of planning cadence, the enterprise can manage that constraint proactively. This creates more reliable delivery and reduces the cycle of surprise skill shortages.

Competency assessment should also be designed to encourage learning rather than fear, because fear drives people to hide gaps and avoid honest discussion. If the assessment is used primarily to punish, it will produce unreliable data, and governance will be steering with distorted information. A constructive approach frames assessment as a way to identify investment needs, clarify expectations, and build stronger teams, while still maintaining accountability for outcomes. This can be done by focusing on the connection between competencies and enterprise success, making it clear that improvement is supported and expected. Beginners can relate to this by thinking of feedback from a coach, where the purpose is to improve performance, not to shame the athlete. At the same time, governance must avoid vague reassurance and must still be willing to address persistent gaps that create risk, which may involve role changes, targeted support, or hiring decisions. The balance is honest assessment with supportive improvement planning. When the culture supports honest assessment, the enterprise can improve faster because it is not wasting energy on pretending.

Finally, linking competencies to business outcomes makes communication with leaders more effective because it replaces technical skill lists with business-relevant narratives. A leader may not understand every technical detail, but they understand whether the enterprise can deliver stable services, protect sensitive information, and respond to incidents quickly. When competency assessment is framed around outcomes, leaders can make informed tradeoffs, such as funding a reliability capability improvement program rather than adding more initiatives to an already overloaded environment. It also helps leaders see why certain roles are critical and why certain skills are scarce, which supports realistic hiring and sourcing decisions. Beginners should understand that governance succeeds when it translates complexity into understandable decisions, and competency assessment is one of the best translation tools available. It makes people capability visible, measurable, and improvable, which is essential because people capability often determines the ceiling of what technology can achieve. When leaders can see this clearly, they are more likely to invest wisely and to set realistic expectations.

As we close, building a competency assessment that links skills directly to business outcomes means designing assessment around what the enterprise must reliably achieve, not around generic skill inventories. Competencies must be defined in observable performance terms, mapped to enterprise capabilities, and connected to the outcomes leaders care about, such as reliability, security, compliance, and delivery speed. The assessment must account for role differences and team coverage, because resilience depends on distribution of skills, not just on individual expertise. It must also be evidence-informed and context-aware so the organization distinguishes true skill gaps from process and tooling barriers. When competency assessment is embedded into planning cadence, it becomes a governance input that improves feasibility decisions and prioritizes capability building where it reduces risk most. For brand-new learners, the key takeaway is that skill development becomes strategic when it is tied to measurable outcomes, because then training, hiring, and sourcing decisions can be justified, sequenced, and evaluated based on real improvement. That is how people capabilities stop being a vague hope and become a managed asset that strengthens enterprise performance over time.