Saves Time (and Money): All organizations have to deal with internal or external cost rates for projects. These rates multiplied by the people and the hours they spend show up on the organization’s financial statements. IT Governance projects are no exception. IT Governance Frameworks help alleviate some of the pressure around identifying where to start, where to go and what the journey should look like.

Reliability (and Robustness): The elements of well-known frameworks have been tested for their stand-alone value as well as their ability to work with other components of the framework. This helps mitigate risk of implementation in your organization.

Consistency (and Modularization): Resources that have implemented elements of these frameworks at other organizations can leverage that knowledge and customize the implementation of relevant process modules for the unique circumstances of your organization.

Therefore, we have done some minor re-wording of parts of the agile manifesto to include areas of business outside software development:

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
• Working deliverables over comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change over following a plan

Some minor re-wording for the principles as well:

• Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable work products.
• Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer’s competitive advantage.
• Deliver work products frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
• Business people and domain experts must work together daily throughout the project.
• Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.
• The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a project team is face-to-face conversation.
• Working deliverables are the primary measure of progress.
• Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
• Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.
• Simplicity–the art of maximizing the amount of work not done–is essential.
• The best business architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.
• At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.

The word governance is derived from the latin root gubernare which means to direct or steer. We believe that it is important to have a simple definition that can be remembered easily by all stakeholders of an organization. IT governance agendas flow out of strategic boardroom and C-suite discussions into the execution DNA of an organization where the mechanics of governance processes are implemented.

Some of the other commonly used definitions of IT governance that we like are as follows:

Weill and Ross define IT Governance as “Specifying the decision rights and accountability framework to encourage desirable behavior in the use of IT.”

The Information Technology Governance Institute (ITGI) describes IT Governance as the responsibility of the board of directors and executive management. It is an integral part of enterprise governance and consists of the leadership and organisational structures and processes that ensure that the organisation’s IT sustains and extends the organisation’s strategies and objectives.

A more detailed post on definitions of IT Governance can be found here.

1) IT Governance

2) The Agile Movement

We welcome contributions and suggestions from our readers.