SPARA with ITIL, COBIT, TOGAF, Agile & DevOps

Organisations will typically fall into one of two categories:

1. Framework with Measurements Already in Place
   • SPARA integrates with existing KPIs, OKRs, compliance checks, and delivery dashboards.
   • It introduces harmonisation metrics and capability diagnostics to provide context around these metrics.
   • Rather than replace measurements, SPARA enhances them by showing how they relate to each other.
2. No Existing Measurement Framework in Place
   • SPARA can be adopted wholesale to provide immediate structure.
   • It brings ready-to-use maturity scales, harmonisation diagnostics, and rhythm cadences that can be tailored to the organisation’s context.

In both states, SPARA helps uncover where effort is being misaligned or friction is hiding in plain sight.

🔹 ITIL

• What ITIL Provides: Process discipline, service design, operational consistency
• SPARA Adds: Flow alignment across teams, experience harmonisation, and measurement of process effectiveness in context.
• Example Touchpoints: Continual Improvement, Service Value System (SVS), Incident vs Experience outcome disconnects

🔹 COBIT

• What COBIT Provides: Enterprise governance, control frameworks, compliance scaffolding
• SPARA Adds: Cross-lever alignment of governance to delivery and people, maturity tracking beyond control effectiveness
• Example Touchpoints: EDM (Evaluate-Direct-Monitor), APO (Align-Plan-Organise)

🔹 TOGAF

• What TOGAF Provides: Enterprise architecture blueprinting and planning
• SPARA Adds: Real-time design flow diagnostics, harmonisation of architecture with governance and delivery
• Example Touchpoints: Architecture Development Method (ADM), Phase G – Implementation Governance

🔹 Agile (Scrum, SAFe)

• What Agile Provides: Speed, team-level autonomy, iterative value
• SPARA Adds: Strategic cohesion, customer alignment, and governance visibility across multiple teams and trains
• Example Touchpoints: PI Planning, ART Rhythm, Backlog Health vs Strategic Alignment

🔹 DevOps

• What DevOps Provides: Automation, speed to deploy, infrastructure as code
• SPARA Adds: Harmonisation between pipeline flow and customer/performance outcomes, maturity balance with assurance
• Example Touchpoints: DORA metrics, change failure rate vs experience perception, incident frequency vs empowerment

Examples are:

• In a regulated banking environment, ITIL was strong but customer trust was low. SPARA uncovered maturity imbalances between Delivery and Experience.
• A DevOps-driven telco had fast release cycles, but still struggled with complaints. SPARA showed that Design and Governance were too immature to support scale.
• A government agency applying COBIT struggled to keep momentum. SPARA layered in capability harmonisation and created an actionable roadmap that built delivery confidence.

To deepen integration, SPARA also introduces the concept of an Integration Matrix — a cross-reference table that maps existing metrics, artefacts, and control points from common frameworks to the most relevant SPARA levers. This allows organisations to retain what already works, while adding systemic visibility and harmonisation logic.

• Example: ITIL’s “First Time Fix Rate” maps to Delivery & Assurance
• Example: TOGAF’s “Architecture Governance Reviews” map to Governance & Alignment and Design & Flow
• Example: DORA’s “Lead Time for Changes” maps to Delivery & Assurance and Design & Flow

This matrix allows SPARA to:

• Surface value from siloed measurements
• Highlight where overlapping metrics pull in different directions
• Show gaps where key levers have no corresponding metrics in existing frameworks

By linking measurement points to SPARA’s maturity model, organisations can diagnose why metrics are stagnating, not just what is being missed.

SPARA is not here to compete with your frameworks. It’s here to help them work together. By providing a layer of shared language, diagnostic feedback, and system thinking, SPARA turns fragmented efforts into a coordinated performance journey.

“SPARA doesn’t replace your frameworks. It makes them work — in harmony.”. It’s here to help them work together. By providing a layer of shared language, diagnostic feedback, and system thinking, SPARA turns fragmented efforts into a coordinated performance journey.

“SPARA doesn’t replace your frameworks. It makes them work — in harmony.”