News & Views

180 View (written by Graeme Booth) – Unfortunately, IT Governance has been made to seem too complicated which, in turn, has led to unnecessary confusion. IT Governance, and corporate governance for that matter, really only consist of three sets of activities all of which cascade into important sub-activities and processes.

Set the direction for IT- this is the basis for business alignment and drives IT investments and decision making toward the achievement of corporate objectives- strategic planning to enforce alignment of business initiatives.

Support the direction for IT- after establishing where you are going, the organization needs to figure out how it is going to get there. Considerations include business and technology architecture, infrastructure, application architecture and portfolio, organization structure, policies et al. Systems management, often referred by the acronym ITIL, enters the fray at this stage- make the decisions and choose the tactics that enhance the chance of strategic success.

and finally,

Sustain the Direction for IT- operating procedures, management and operating controls, internal control and audit, COBIT. Clearly, if your environment is not resilient and cannot be managed, measured and monitored, the value from strategy etc. is significantly diminished. It’s all about establishing accountability for IT processes.

Its like a road trip really- decide where you are going, choose the route, and try not to get lost along the way.