IT plays an integral part in most organizations today. While many organizations are recognizing the importance of IT governance, few actually understand it. As the role of IT continues to grow, IT governance becomes critical. Understand the role of governance in IT, and why successful organizations are applying governance practices within the IT department.
What is IT Governance?
The IT Governance Institute
For more information on IT governance visit the IT Governance Institute Web site at www.itgi.org. |
IT governance is a continuous process of improvement which focuses on sustaining stakeholder value and confidence across the business. According to the IT Governance Institute “it is an integral part of enterprise governance that consists of leaders and organizational structures and processes that ensure and organization’s IT sustains and extends the organization’s strategies and objectives”.
Simply stated, IT governance is about putting structure and accountability around how an organization aligns IT strategy with business strategy, ensuring that a company can stay on track to achieve its goal and objectives.
The Purpose of IT Governance
The purpose of IT governance is to direct IT endeavors to ensure that IT`s performance meets the following objectives:
- Align IT more closely with the business
- Manage, evaluate, measure and monitor IT processes in a more consistent and repeatable manner that exploits opportunities and maximizes returns to the business
- Manage the responsible utilization of IT resources and assets
- Ensure that IT delivers on its plans, budgets and commitments
- Establish and clarify accountability and decision rights (i.e. clearly defined roles and authority)
- Manage risks, change and contingency planning
- Improve IT performance, compliance, maturity and development
- Support visible and transparent decision making
- Satisfy regulatory and formal compliance requirements
- Control IT work
- Justify IT’s spending
- Connect with the needs of customers, the broader organization and other stakeholders
Through IT governance practices, organizations aim to ensure that expectations for IT are met and shareholder value is delivered.
Key Takeaways
- IT governance assists enterprise leaders in their responsibility to make IT successful in supporting business goals and objectives. IT has a major impact on organizational outcomes and represents significant investment, provides opportunities to obtain a competitive advantage, offers a means for increasing productivity and is fundamental to support, sustain and grow business. Leveraging IT successfully to transform the enterprise has become a universal core competency. IT governance is therefore critical to ensure expectations of IT are met and future IT risks are mitigated.
- IT governance is about continuous improvements. IT governance represents a journey; it is a not a project with a defined beginning and end. It is about continuously making changes, measuring the results and doing what is necessary to make IT more effective and efficient.
- IT governance does not exist in a vacuum. IT governance is not an isolated discipline or activity but rather an integral part of overall enterprise governance. According to the IT Governance Institute “The need to integrate IT governance with overall enterprise governance is similar to the need for IT to be an integral part of the enterprise rather than something practiced in remote corners of ivory towers.”
- Obtain senior management buy-in. Executive management is often the driving group behind governance efforts, usually as a result of compliance needs and other business-driven issues. Senior management buy-in can further be secured by presenting a case that focuses on the business value that can achieved through IT governance practice. Cost savings achieved through process efficiencies, competitive advantage via business and IT alignment and higher IT service levels all offer significant value to the enterprise.
- Become educated on standards and concepts. Read related Info-Tech research notes, take classes, and leverage freely-available case studies and resources provided on the Web.
Bottom Line
Successful organizations understand the important of IT in business today. They enforce IT governance to manage and control risks and to exploit the full benefits of their IT departments.
