IT Policy Compliance Study

IT Governance is an essential component of modern business. With increasing spending on technology and growing security risks, the effective deployment of IT resources can help give a business a competitive advantage over other businesses in the same market. IT governance can be composed of several components. There are several ways to approach IT governance in an organization as well as several best practices a company can undertake. A study by the IT Policy Compliance Group found that companies with the most mature IT governance practices were found to have constantly higher revenue, profits and customer retention, while also having lower risks and loss of customer data. This shows that IT governance is an essential practice for modern …show more content…
IT framework focuses on using industry best practices to formalize IT management as an aligned strategic long term business goals of the company. Strategic management in IT governance is used to continually monitor the IT framework to keep it aligned with the short and long term goals of the company through performance monitoring and measurement. Benefit realization is focused on making sure the company is seeing a positive benefit from their IT strategy and is creating value and minimizing waste as IT projects are created and deployed. Risk optimization is focused on developing realistic understandings of the probability of success and failure of a project while also taking in to account the need to stay compliant with regulations. This can include creating a risk portfolio or risk acceptance methodology. Last, resource optimization makes sure that a company has the ability to afford all the components necessary to take advantage of an IT process and is fully staffed and trained to execute the IT process on time in order to reduce waste. These five domains are essential to understanding the big picture of IT governance. It involves having a solid foundation, a focus on managing the process to align with business goals, a way to monitor the benefits derived from the project, a way to assess risk …show more content…
Some best practices from this approach include setting the correct business priorities, following up with older projects, invite only key members to meetings, differentiate between governance and project management and understand the proper structure for IT governance in each specific company. Setting the correct business priorities helps to stay on target and to make sure the IT project is aligned with the companies goals. Following up with older projects means to review implementation of previous projects to understand and identify what went well and what went wrong. This can give a company a better insight in to assumptions and risk when undertaking new projects. Inviting only key members to a meeting is a way to keep meetings on task by limiting them to only the essential staff. This also helps to clearly define responsibilities and accountability for project steps. Another important practice is to understand the difference between governance and project management. A project can fail because it was a poor fit for the company or was too much of a risk. A second project may have been a good fit for the company, but could have failed due to poor management during implementation. The difference between IT governance and project management is important to take in to account. Last, there is no best system for IT governance, it is important to find the best structure that aligns with the current composition