Good Essay About 344

Management

IT governance has five significant decision domains. These include: IT principles, architecture, infrastructure, prioritization investment decisions and business application needs. IT principles is concerned about the high level decisions which have to be made on the strategic role that IT plays in business. IT architecture on the other hand is composed of technical choices meant to offer guidelines to organizations to enable them satisfy their business needs. IT infrastructure on the other hand is a mixture of IT services that are shared and centrally coordinated to help in the provision of a solid foundation for the capability of an enterprise. It was typically created even before its precise usage needs were made known. Business application needs is also another key decision, which is essentially business requirements for IT applications that have been developed internally as well as those that have been purchased. The last key decision domain is the prioritization and investment decisions which help to establish the extent and location an organization needs to invest in IT. Each of these can always be addressed at different levels which include the business unit level, corporate or functional level as well as a combination of the three. The IT managers and the business unit are usually held accountable by the senior managers for all the outcomes and hence the importance of an important step of establishing those responsible for each of the decision areas.
When implementing a new IT function or department in a company, the business monarchy system will be the most applicable since it is more centralized. It will generally involve a group of senior and business executives as well as the CIO. As a senior management team member, the CIO will translate the investment decisions and principles into the IT infrastructure and architecture. This will help to make all the IT related decisions a form of an enterprise as compared to the other models like the monarchy system which leaves all the major decisions to individual IT executives and business representatives. It will also reflect the commitment of the company to the provision for wholesome and integrated solutions to some of the global commercial needs of customers.
Accountability and authority are some of the most important facets of IT governance. Roles allocating decision making responsibilities depending on chosen archetypes are therefore important. There is need for a clear allocation of leadership and ownership such that IT projects have the various departments like the management and the IT department taking ownership of different projects. An unclear leadership definition from the senior management compromises the IT project by placing it at a risk of disintegration when it is unable to integrate its specific and individual objectives with those overall to the organization. It is always a common phenomenon to find the management handing over all of its work to the IT department, an act which consequently leads to inadequate alignment and integration of IT with the general objectives of the organization. Such a malpractice often creates huge inefficiencies which are usually blamed on the IT managers.
The lack of a clear leadership definition highlighting on the specific roles and responsibilities of individuals also leads to a poor strategic development in the company. As a result there may insufficient business value derived from all the significant IT investments in the company that are not in strategic alignment with the resources and objectives of the company. Such cases of poor strategic alignment often indicate that the IT governance system installed may be ineffective and inefficient to the overall achievement of the organizational objectives.