Governing IT | TechExpress.co
- 1. Quick Start: Governing IT Take the guesswork out of IT decision-making
- 2. Effective decision-making is critical to the governance of IT investments, project delivery, and IT support. Introduction IT leaders in organizations who: • Are failing audits • Have lost control of IT services to external providers • Lack well-defined standards and processes for IT decision-making • Experience misalignment between IT investment and business priorities • Struggle to implement process improvement and have little influence on executives • Struggle to develop and enforce the IT policies that will add value to the organization Design improvements and governance structures for key process areas that will actually improve IT’s value delivery. Create the policies and procedures needed to support the structures. Create the processes to enforce the policies and cement the governance structures and processes in place. Ensure that your IT policies are conservative and comprehensive. This Research Is Designed For: This Research Will Help You:
- 3. Can you relate to any of these statements about governance in your organization? Organizations make many common mistakes because of deeply held beliefs about IT governance “IT doesn’t understand what services the business needs or what the business is prepared to invest in those services.” “IT is always working on poorly specified, ad-hoc, or “I want” projects that are dollar, time, and resource wasters.” “The business doesn’t know how IT dollars are spent.” “IT projects deliver the wrong functionality, do not improve business effectiveness, or impede business productivity.” “IT initiatives do not help the business achieve its objectives.” “IT initiatives are undertaken without adequate assessment of the level of IT risk involved.” If so, it’s time to change the way the organization thinks. The guiding principle behind IT Governance is that IT must be informed and driven by business management decision-making for IT spending, services, projects, and risk. This provides the necessary link between IT investment and business goals and strategy. IT governance is an integral part of enterprise governance and consists of leadership and organizational structures and processes that ensure IT sustains and extends the organization's strategies and objectives. The overall objectives of IT governance activities are to understand the issues and the strategic importance of IT, to ensure that the enterprise can sustain operations, and to ascertain that it can implement the strategies required to extend its activities into the future.
- 4. Good governance is absolutely necessary Policy and governance is the foundation of organizational management. The costs of poor governance may often go unnoticed, but they can have a significant impact on the bottom line. Poor governance can lead to failed IT projects, lost productivity and revenue, and higher help desk and training costs. Create a policy portfolio in weeks, not months Don’t gamble with IT’s business credibility. Formulate policies and procedures that facilitate the smooth and cost-effective delivery of IT services. Use the IT Governance Toolbox to manage processes, and define and enforce policies that bring value to IT services. The IT Governance Toolbox can help you: Select a framework for managing processes Capture business processes that inform the development of new policies and procedures Create effective and enforceable policies and procedures that create consistent IT standards Measure the effectiveness of a policy and deal with policies violations fairly Use the tools in the Governing IT Toolbox to take the guesswork out of IT decision-making Some of the tools you will access: Manage Processes Process Inventory Tool Guide to Process Mapping Process Framework Selection Guide Process Gap Assessment Tool Define Policies Policy Management Package Policy and Procedure Inventory Tool Policy Requirements Document Policy Assessment Tool Policy Enforcement Tracking Tool Policy Development Tool Policy Lifecycle Work Plan Enforce Policies Policy Implementation Plan Policy Training Plan Template Policy Violation Escalation Procedure Policy Procedure Performance Report Policy Procedure Review Schedule Your Governing IT Toolbox
- 5. Perform an initial assessment of the benefit you expect from the project. Begin building the business case now to improve executive support for your initiative and measure its success You can’t report what you don’t measure Developing right-sized policies and procedures will bring much needed clarity, consistency, and precision to IT services. Ensure the policies you design are the ones the business needs, design them well the first time, and update them occasionally. Initial measurements of critical management processes will highlight the benefits you expect from the policy development project, generate support for your initiative, and help measure its success. Info-Tech recommends using the following KPIs to assess the impact of your initiative. The exact KPIs you choose to focus on will depend on the goals of your organization, and which tools and templates from the toolbox you deploy. Start with metrics that address specific issues in your organization. How to complete this task 1. Estimate the work hours involved in the project. 2. Whatever KPIs you choose, define them in simple, meaningful language. Example: Policy Violations = the # of IT policy violations over a period Example: Help Desk Costs = the fully-loaded cost to offer help desk services per employee or end- user over a period 3. Record initial measurements of the two KPIs. 4. Measure your KPIs again once the project is done to assess its impact on your organization. # IT Policy Violations Policy Violations Cost to serve Help Desk Costs
- 6. The first step in developing a process management program is to document all existing processes related to IT in the organization. Once this step is completed, then the important task of identifying gaps in the process portfolio can begin. Use the Process Interview Template and the Process Inventory Tool to engage stakeholders in documenting and improving existing processes. Use the Guide to Business Process Mapping to make a visual representation of how processes are carried out in your organization. The Process Profile Template can help document the information you uncover, and store it in a single location. When you are ready to improve your processes, use the Process Framework Selection Guide to evaluate and select a best practice process framework to strengthen the organization’s process structure. The guide identifies service, application, and software frameworks that can improve the workflows in your organization. The guide includes a needs assessment, and an organizational readiness questionnaire to evaluate whether your organization is ready for the framework. Involve stakeholders in assessing the viability of IT processes
- 7. Use the Policy Assessment Tool and the Policy Needs Gap Assessment Tool to list the policies you have in place, and assess their quality. The exercise will help you decide where you need new policies, where existing ones need improvement, and which policy you should prioritize. Use the Policy Management Development Tool, and the more than 37 Sample Policies to craft policy documents and extract key policy messages when communicating with the organization. Use the Leadership Skills Inventory and the A-B-C Management Advice Tool to hone your leadership skills and develop an approach that creates and sustains high-performance teams. Use the Professional Development Program Guide to identify skills gaps in your IT staff and develop a learning plan to address them. Use the Annual Performance Review Templates to develop a consistent process to set goals for IT staff and assess their performance. The Peer Feedback Templates will help you incorporate assessments from colleagues, Finally, use the ROI Calculator for Corporate Training to assess the expected return from addressing performance shortfalls. Discover where your enterprise needs policy improvements
- 8. Once your policies and procedures are drafted, use the Policy Implementation Plan to organize the scope of the deployment, and assign resources to put policies into practice. In the context of policy implementation, a formal implementation plan is most useful for rollouts that have a far-reaching impact on people, processes and technologies. For smaller policy deployments, consider using Policy Communication Plan Template to share them with the organization. Use the Policy Reports List, the Technology Use Monitoring Policies, and the Policy Training Plan Template to integrate the policy and procedures in your organization and monitor adherence. Use the Policy Violation Escalation Process and the Policy Violation Letter Template to ensure your organization has a well-defined assignment of enforcement responsibility. Policies are not documents that you set and forget. Use the Policy Performance Report, the Policy Review Schedule, and the Policy Review Checklist to measure the performance of individual policies, and establish a review cycle for the policy portfolio. Implement policies successfully, and measure their effectiveness with an eye toward improvement
- 9. Other tools and templates in Quick Start: Governing IT Explore the other tools and templates in Quick Start: Governing IT. Here are suggested tools and templates to help improve your governance of IT processes. Section 1: Manage Processes Use the tools in this section to develop and improve your IT team, mature your leadership skills, and manage the performance of your team members. Among other tools, you will find tools and templates to calculate HR costs, assess skills gaps, make the case for hiring more staff, conduct interviews, draft HR policies, and assess the performance of team members. Section 2: Define IT Policies and Procedures Use the tool in this section to craft policies that add value to the organization and withstand both time and scrutiny. The goal of this suite of tools is to provide the guidance you need to take an inventory of existing polices, create and improve policies that fill gaps in your portfolio, and get approval for your policies from your most important stakeholders. Section 3: Enforce IT Policies and Procedures Use the tools in this section to communicate your new and improved policies to your organization. Implementing and enforcing documented policies should be a continuous process. Communicate with stakeholders, monitor adherence, and put in place a process to review policy performance. Committing to the review and revision of policies, and they will remain relevant to the organization’s mandate. manage your help desk and manage IT services.