IT Governance – Approach

An important guideline in accomplishing goals is that of having an approach. Here is an approach that I believe will assist in reaching organizational goals.

The approach of having a Governance Committeeis one can accomplish IT Governance at various levels. Typically, when one hears the term “committee” or governing board, one thinks of executive level stakeholders in an organization. While a committee is needed at the executive level to ensure all areas of the business are operating at the same accord to meet the needs and requirements of the business, one could argue that governance committees can be used at the levels “closer to the ground” of an organization in order to provide representation at all levels to ensure business needs and requirements are aligning at all levels. Good examples of this would be something along the lines of an Enterprise Architectural review board that reviews incoming projects and ensure they are aligning with overall organization strategy and strategy from an architectural standpoint.

The Harvard Business School gives the following insight on the creation of a Governance Committee at the board level:
“How do you set up an IT governance committee? A company that decides it needs board-level IT oversight must do three things: Select the appropriate members and the chairman, determine the group’s relationship to the audit committee, and prepare the charter. The first two are especially important.

We recommend that the IT governance group be made up of independent directors, as is the case with audit and compensation committees. Chairmanship is also critical. For firms in support, factory, or turnaround modes, the chairperson need not be an IT expert but should certainly be a tough-minded, IT-savvy business executive—either a CEO or a top manager who has overseen the use of IT to gain strategic advantage in another organization.”[5]

The board level perspective gives great insight of the benefits of taking individuals from various backgrounds as this provides different unbiased perspectives which allows organizations to identify things they normally would not have considered when it comes to operating and defining business requirements.

Image Courtesy of AXA

References:

1. Richard Nolan and Warren McFarlen. 2005. Building an IT Governance Committee. (October 2005). Retrieved February 17, 2018 from https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/building-an-it-governance-committee

Acknowledgement:

IT7833 Exercise 4 – Creating Value