Governing iT

Gone are the days when you can run a business concern, any type of rational enterprise, without some element of modern communication or computer system. In Europe and much of the world, the term Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is used to describe what is simply termed Information Technology (IT) in the United States. But irrespective of what term is used to describe the confluence of computer and communications technology; it is the heart of modern enterprises; public, private and anything else in between. Electronic mails have supplanted snail mails as the preferred mode of letter writing; business and private; one in five people in the world now own a cellphone and an increasing use it for more than just talking. There are currently tens of millions of domain names, an increasing number from developing countries. No major business anywhere in the world today operate without a computer, and even the internet. Many small business now have global presence, thanks to the internet; and many are competing or doing business with bigger businesses by using new technology trends including cloud computing and software as a service models. This is indeed the age of ICT (or IT or as some are beginning to say, innovation Technology).

The problem with all these opportunities though is the chaos associated with technology adoption in most businesses, even in some of the largest and most sophisticated businesses. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, many businesses, including many banks consummated global mergers; yet many still struggle to tame the disparate data networks from the separate entities that were clobbered together to form some of the world’s largest financial institutions. Someday, when the full details of the current world financial crises is written, the role of untamed data and information infrastructure will become more apparent. Even large government expenditure in e-governance including multi-billion dollar projects by the FBI have failed miserably in the midst of unfathomable chaos. The need for technology governance is obviated by the billions in lost opportunities and wasted funds, public and private. The need for iT governance is becoming a consensus.

Governance is a staple of all enterprises. Afterall, governance is about decision making, accountability and results. In the public sector, there are myriads of governance structures include several variants of elective governance structures. Education Institutions often have a different structure than city or local government and the governance structures of for-profit organizations are often different than those of not-for-profit ones. However, for better or for worse, governance structures are either an outshot of enterprise cultures or they drive the cultures. In time past, enterprise governance is simply taken for granted and only discussed in the realm of corporate audit. Organizations simply have one holistic governance structure based on often times undocumented but well recognized frameworks. For publicly traded businesses, a regulating entity determines the governance framework and organizations are expected to comply with some laid down rules of decision making and performance metrics.

Information Technology has become the heart of modern business, and because of the complexity of technology and the tremendous opportunity afforded by its deployment, governing IT has become an imperative for all organization, irrespective of size. The problem however, and there lots of problems, is the lack of consensus about what constitutes governance or even what needs to be governed; amongst current cadre of practitioners.  This lack of a consensus is behind the reason why respondents to a recent ECAR research stated that they used various governance frameworks! Actually, the framing of the survey instrument that led to the report demonstrated the lack of consensus by the researchers. Is project management best practices framework an IT Governance framework? Or is Information Security Management framework an IT Management framework? Is a control objective framework developed by group of Internal Auditors and related industry practitioner the right or the framework of framework or would you even consider an Enterprise Architectural framework such as the TOGAF or Zachman or EISSAF a governance framework?

Decision makers and most enterprise stakeholders are not interested in these details, and as more and more CIOs are drawn from the cadre of MBAs and less from the cadre of Computer Scientists and Engineers, the details of what constitute a governance framework will gradually get subsumed in the need to get the job done and realize the opportunities afforded by technology while avoiding the potential pitfalls. Hoewever, the question of what constitute an IT governance framework needs to be addressed , not by consensus, but by thorough review of the subject and a carefull analysis of the various documentation; looking at their origin, scope, target audience, intent and current application in practice.

I will look at some of these issues at the next Innovation Technology Lecture Series (ITLS) sponsored by HNT Solutions and held at Morgan State University in late January; and will continue my exploration of the topic at the next Sungard Summit in Philladelphia where I will be giving a Lecture on IT Governance in March. Also, in due course, I will provide access to the presentations to this site and continue to discuss the issue on Linked In as I have in the past three weeks.

I look forward to you joining me at any one of the future speaking events and if you wish on Linked In or in this page.