Examples Of IT Governance

Worth noting is that, IT governance and its mechanisms such as; IT organizational structure, governance committees, approvals and budgeting processes (Weill, 2004) can be found in every enterprise but the only difference is that, enterprises with an effective proactive governance also have in place active IT governance mechanisms which enables their appropriate behavioural patterns to be fitted into the organization’s goals, strategy, values, norms, mission, and culture, to crown it all successful.

Therefore from the above description of IT governance one can now easily pin-point the key issues related to an effective IT governance mechanisms, highlighted in Galliers & Leidner chapter 12, (2009, p. 303-4) by Weill, (2004) as explained below:

Only when the IT governance is designed around the enterprise’s goals and performance objectives, will it then be active and performant because it is consistent and can be communicated in the enterprise-wide system. Fixing problems one after the other as they occur is a good defensive strategy but which has negative setbacks on the IT strategic performance by limiting its value creation opportunities. Most enterprises failed because they have designed an IT governance system whose mechanisms are uncoordinated and are not in congruence with the organization’s goals which can then leads to excessive IT expenditure or architectural

This is so because, redesigning a whole IT governance is a huge investment project, so it should be done incrementally. It can take at least six months to design and implement a new IT governance structure, and more than six months for employees in the corporation to accept and learn its importance. An IT governance cannot be redesigned when the changes that takes place are changes in the economy or a strategy adjustment. If these changes occur only the decisions made within the current governance related to the specific areas principles that needed to be adjusted. For instance, if an organization changes its IT governance arrangements as a result of an economic meltdown, that is an indication that initially the governance structure was not efficiently designed and the enterprise needs to be attentive.

Education about IT governance: One most important issue about IT governance is education that needed to be given to managers to enable them understand and use the IT governance mechanisms. For IT governance to be very productive in an enterprise, it requires that the CIO and other senior IT executive should invest in more time to coach, educate, lobby and even mentor others. Managers who are educated about the IT governance mechanisms