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Table of Contents
Background ...............................................................................................................................................2
What is IT Governance? ............................................................................................................................2
Where to Start? .........................................................................................................................................3
[I] Understand the Scope of IT Governance ........................................................................................ 4
[II] See Where You Are....................................................................................................................... 8
[III] Define Roles and Responsibilities for Your IT Governance Framework ......................................... 8
[IV] Identify the Right Implementation Spot ......................................................................................... 9
[V] Build a Continuous Improvement Plan........................................................................................... 9
Typical Challenges ....................................................................................................................................9
Proven Frameworks ................................................................................................................................10
Conclusion ..............................................................................................................................................12
References..............................................................................................................................................12
Patni’s IT Governance Practice................................................................................................................12
About the Author .....................................................................................................................................13
About Patni..............................................................................................................................................13
Not surprisingly, organizations having good governance strategies in place are valued
highly by shareholders and have good market capitalization. Today, good governance is
crucial to drive more business value with less cost and maintain high service levels. With
the vast majority of this information residing in IT systems, effective control and
management of these systems has become essential – hence the current focus on IT
Governance.
IT Governance is a crucial weapon that every organization’s IT force should be armed with
to meet these increasing demands. This paper highlights the best practices for
implementing an effective IT Governance strategy and describes how IT Governance tools
can help organizations streamline their IT strategy and execution with business goals.
WHAT IS IT GOVERNANCE?
IT Governance in simple terms can be said to be a method for CIOs to manage IT strategy
and execution by enabling a consolidated view of key governance functions such as
project management, demand management, resource management, risk management
and performance management. It is an integral part of enterprise governance and
comprises the leadership, organizational structures, and processes that ensure that the IT
strategy sustains and extends the organization’s strategies and objectives.
The overall objective of IT Governance, therefore, is to understand the issues and the
strategic importance of IT, so that the enterprise can sustain its operations and implement
the strategies required to extend its activities into the future. The goal of IT governance is
hence not just to formulate a plan, but to ensure that the policy or plan works as planned,
and resources are used responsibly. It enables enterprises to match their expectations
with reality.
Effective IT Governance ensures that expectations for IT are met and IT risks are
mitigated. It helps organizations in repeating the success and eliminating the failure.
WHERE TO START?
Having understood the benefits of IT Governance, let us look at how organizations can
start adopting IT Governance as a strategy.
The following are the recommended steps that organizations should go through while
planning an IT Governance strategy:
§ Understand the scope of IT Governance
§ See where you are
§ Define roles and responsibilities for your IT Governance framework
§ Identify the right implementation spot
§ Build a continuous improvement plan.
These are considered as outcomes of IT Governance. There are three main drivers that
drive these outcomes:
§ Strategic Alignment
§ Resource Management
§ Performance Measurement.
Organizations should pay close attention to these five key domains to get the maximum
benefits from an IT Governance implementations. However, to achieve these benefits, the
organization must evaluate vendors and solutions to find the right combination.
The following listing proves an insight into each of these five domains and also gives an
idea of how different IT Governance tools in the market can help manage each one of
these domains.
Further, organizations have to look at the ability of these tools to retrieve financial
data from existing systems and populate the budgeting information automatically
when existing financial systems are updated.
TYPICAL CHALLENGES
One of the typical challenges seen in an IT Governance implementation is convincing
people to use the system of accountability. The chances of failure increase when the gap
between promises made by the organization and the results delivered by them increases.
Leaders who fall victim to these gaps have frequently mentioned that the problem lies with
accountability. People aren’t doing the things they’re supposed to do to implement a plan.
The performance measures coming out of an IT Governance system are more evident to
the senior management. It is very important to make people at all levels realize the
importance of IT Governance. Unless this vision is shared, it will be difficult for people at
the operational level to visualize the direction or the objectives that the higher
management wants to achieve.
Organizations need people at all levels who ensure that reliability standards are
mandatory and enforceable, with penalties for non-compliance. People driving this
One understated factor for ensuring the success of IT Governance is the use of processes
that are simple to execute and understand. Ideally, processes should demand necessary
actions rather than letting system users think or decide on the actions to take.
PROVEN FRAMEWORKS
To ensure an effective IT Governance strategy, organizations can adopt proven
frameworks. One good way to start effortlessly is through understanding of frameworks
such as CobiT (Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology).
Once CobiT is understood, one will exactly know what to do with one’s IT Governance
implementation. The next big question one will have is how to do it? IT Infrastructure
Library (ITIL) is the answer to this question.
CobiT and ITIL are not mutually exclusive and can be combined (as depicted in Figure 4)
to provide a powerful IT Governance, control and best-practice framework in IT service
management. Enterprises that want to put their ITIL program into the context of a wider
control and governance framework should use CobiT.
REFERENCES
1. Board Briefing on IT Governance, 2nd Edition
http://www.isaca.org/Content/ContentGroups/ITGI3/Resources1/Board_Briefing_on_IT_Governance/
26904_Board_Briefing_final.pdf
For the past 3 years he has been actively involved in IT Governance Implementations that
have enabled various customers successfully shape their IT Governance Agenda.
ABOUT PATNI
Patni Computer Systems Limited (BSE: PATNI COMPUT, NSE: PATNI) is a global IT
Services provider servicing Global 2000 clients through its industry practices in Insurance,
Financial Services, Manufacturing, Telecom, Retail, Media & Entertainment, Energy &
Utilities, and Logistics & Transportation; and through its technology practices.
With an employee strength of over 10,000; multiple offshore development facilities across
eight cities; and 24 international offices across the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific;
Patni has registered revenues of US$ 326.6 million for the year 2004.
Committed to quality, Patni adds value to its client's businesses through well-established
and structured methodologies, tools and techniques. Patni is an ISO 9001:2000 certified
and SEI-CMMI Level 5 organization, assessed enterprise wide at P-CMM Level 3. In
keeping with its focus on continuous process improvements, Patni adopts Six Sigma
practices as an integral part of its quality and process frameworks.