The majority of IT budget is spent on existing infrastructure, yet you need to address non-negotiable issues like legal and regulatory compliance which divert resources from initiatives that drive business growth http://ca.com/files/solutionbriefs/it_governance_solution_brief_fr-fr.pdf

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The ability to provide good IT Governance is an ongoing challenge to balance current needs with business growth investments. To make the most effective IT investment decisions, IT decisions need to be performed with comprehensive inputs that give you the information needed to build an environment for Information-Driven, Effective Decision making. This environment gives managers insight in many domains such as manage demand, mitigate risk by assessing risks to business for more objective decision making and building standardized processes to support regulatory compliance program, and finally optimize services by measuring cost and services levels to drive continues improvement. http://ca.com/files/solutionbriefs/it_governance_solution_brief_fr-fr.pdf

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According to Weill and Ross (2004), the definition of IT governance is to specify the decision rights and accountability framework to encourage desirable behavior in the use of IT. This definition aims to encourage the simplicity of IT governance to support decision rights and accountability, and its complexity as desirable behaviors that are different in every enterprise. The purpose of IT governance is to support desirable behavior in the use of IT with assigned the decision rights and accountability properly. Reference: Weill, P., and Ross, J. (2004). IT Governance. Harvard Business School Press: Boston, MA

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the main problem that causes many barriers and obstacle to achieve the control within IT department in any firm is the misconception that board and executive management have. Effective IT governance needs to be a top-down initiative. Unfortunately, many managers don't know much about IT governance's concept. some of them think this is just a technical issue. high level management are still not aware of IT governance and how it could play a big role in their strategy. this problem impacts negatively on different domains such as, Strategic alignment of IT with the business,Value delivery of IT,Management of IT risks IT Governance: New Players, Challenges and Opportunities By Everett C. Johnson, CPA Volume 2, 2005

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the main problem that causes many barriers and obstacle to achieve the control within IT department in any firm is the misconception that board and executive management have. Effective IT governance needs to be a top-down initiative. Unfortunately, many managers don't know much about IT governance's concept. some of them think this is just a technical issue. high level management are still not aware of IT governance and how it could play a big role in their strategy. this problem impacts negatively on different domains such as, Strategic alignment of IT with the business,Value delivery of IT,Management of IT risks http://www.itgi.org/Template.cfm?Section=Home&CONTENTID=24164&TEMPLATE=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm

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the main problem that causes many barriers and obstacle to achieve the control within IT department in any firm is the misconception that board and executive management have. Effective IT governance needs to be a top-down initiative. Unfortunately, many managers don't know much about IT governance's concept. some of them think this is just a technical issue. high level management are still not aware of IT governance and how it could play a big role in their strategy. this problem impacts negatively on different domains such as, Strategic alignment of IT with the business,Value delivery of IT,Management of IT risks.

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IT governance is basically about IT decision-making: The preparation for, making of and implementation of decisions regarding goals, processes, people and technology on a tactical and strategic level (M?rten Simonsson and Pontus Johnson)http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.64.6388&rep=rep1&type=pdf

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Governance plans for what decisions will need to be made, whereas management is the process of making and implementing the decisions. Governance sets policies, whereas management follows them. http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/ar-servgov/

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The chapter on surveys was probably the most relevant for me. At one point the author mentions how surveys can create a false sense of security because of their perceived quantitativeness. I've seen this quite a bit in organizations where people quantify survey data then drive business decisions based on those numbers. I liked that the author went into some detail about how to structure surveys well, the various ways of adminstering them and the pros and cons, and also the pitfalls of surveys altogether. I especially thought surveys were relevant because of the often qualitative nature of some IS projects. For example, what would be the impact of redesigning a very complex site using design principles? While we could measure things like time to completion of a task, often these changes can be so minor we can't really show what the benefit was. However, the qualitative perceptions of those impacted aer another story. Certainly I walked away with a greater appreciation for surveys as well as awareness not to rely on that false seen of quantitative value too much.

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When Implementing IT Governance, it is challenging to determine the right mechanisms that work for one's organizations. What works for one company does not necessarily work for another, even though they are within the same sector.

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