What is IT Governance?

The answer to this question can fill volumes of books. I intend to answer this question and many more in plain simple english.

Information Technology (IT) is a key part of any business. Every department in a business makes use of IT, there is therefore a need to ensure that IT is included in any Strategic decision making made by a Company's Board of Directors. This involvement is an extension of Corporate Governance to include IT.

The Board of Directors will typically plan ahead with short, medium and long term strategies. In order to achieve these strategies, they need to identify objectives. All projects in the organisation can be mapped to these business objectives. Projects can then be analysed to see whether the objectives are being met. Part of this planning will include key financial and resource decisions which require an understanding of projects and programmes going on in the organisation. The Board needs to look at all potential projects, existing projects and completed projects on an ongoing basis to ensure that their Strategies are sucessful. The Board will need to assess the IT needs relating to projects and programmes in the same capacity as all others areas of the business.

Finally, IT Governance ensures that all IT related decisions adhere to the businesses processes and procedures. This will ensure that all authorisations are done by the appropriate people.

So, ITG ensures that strategies are met, policies and procedures are adhered to, appropriate people perform authorisations at appropriate times. The most important element of all of this, is that there is visibility of these decisions to the extent that if there is an external audit, it will be easy to show the auditor who has made the decisions and when they were made.