IT governance

IT governance ensures and demonstrates that the following are achieved.

  • IT meets broader organisational objectives.
  • Senior executives have effective control of IT.
  • IT meets internal policy and external regulation.
  • IT manages investment and cost effectively.
  • IT manages change effectively.
  • IT manages risk effectively.
  • IT makes effective use of resources.
  • IT meets the needs of customers, the broader organisation, and other stakeholders.
  • IT manages its own work effectively.

There is no single, agreed definition for IT governance. Many different methods and products claim to be part of IT governance.

The general consensus is that the main contributors to effective IT governance are:

  • An effective connection between IT and senior executives.
  • Control of IT projects, for example using project portfolio management.
  • Control of IT development processes, for example using CMMI.
  • Control over service delivery, for example using ITIL.
  • Effective IT audit and security functions.

These disciplines provide governance over investment, change, development and service delivery processes.

System governance

Most IT governance concentrates on processes for changing systems and for delivering service on a day-to-day basis. This is reasonable because most IT spend and resource is directed to these activities.

All IT service delivery and IT change activity is heavily dependent on the qualities and characteristics of the underlying IT systems. For example:

  • Systems that are unreliable are hard to operate.
  • Systems that are badly documented and badly maintained are hard to change.
  • Systems that are badly structured and use old technology must be replaced early, which reduces return on the investment in the systems.

System qualities and characteristics have a significant impact on every part of IT. They are not well covered by the main IT governance disciplines, or are covered only inefficiently.

System governance fills this gap. It ensures and demonstrates that the qualities and characteristics of IT systems meet the objectives of the organisation.

System governance simplifies other aspects of IT governance because it provides a consistent and efficient framework for managing qualities and characteritics. For example, system governance simplifies quality control activities within projects, and provides a simple management framework for maintaining and upgrading systems to meet service levels.

Management tips

  • Take a broad view of IT governance. Some vendors position their products as a complete IT governance solution, but in practice most products deal with only one aspect.
  • Include system governance as part of overall IT governance because it makes the other aspects simpler and because it plugs an important gap.

See
Application portfolio management
IT governance and IT processes
COBIT, a framework for IT governance
IT Governance Institute
Wikipedia article on IT governance