IT Governance Activities - San Diego, California
By Tracie Monk IT Governance is characterized by the strategic integration of business and IT (Information Technology) decision-making. It extends the corporate vision and strategy into the IT operations and requires the development of collaborative relationships and shared understanding among key stakeholders.
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By Tracie Monk
On February 20th, 2004, UCSD (University of California at San Diego) Extension released the results of their survey and findings about IT Governance policies and practices in San Diego at their IT Governance Conference. Fifty-three respondents (representing 44 businesses in San Diego) participated in the IT Governance survey. Of the respondents, 90 percent were IT Managers or Executives. Virtually none of this group used formal IT planning methodologies such as IT Service Management (ITSM), the Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology (COBIT) framework or the Software Engineering Institutes' Capability Maturity Model (CMM) or Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI).
Only three individuals use the currently popular Balanced Scorecard (BSC) methodology and none use this technique for IT-specific planning. A third of the respondents indicate that management analysis is the technique of choice for developing strategic plans both at the corporate and IT levels. For IT departments, periodic initiative reviews are used by roughly a fourth of the respondents.
Among the participants, over half indicated that IT strategy is formulated by mid-level IT Managers; 34 percent indicated that this function is handled by the CIO or CTO. Over 40 percent of IT budgets are approved directly by the CEO.
"This direct involvement by the senior executive may be partly due to the number of San Diego CEOs that have emerged from the technical ranks through startups," explained Tracie Monk, director of UCSD Extension's Computing and Networking Technologies department. On the whole however, IT strategy does not appear to be strongly linked to the business tactics of San Diego executives.
Recent legislation such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and Federal Department of Agriculture (FDA) regulations are considered by the respondents to be very relevant to IT policies and practices. However IT departments are not making significant additional investments to support these new Federal and State regulations.
As we look to 2004, survey respondents were relatively upbeat, with 73 percent indicating that their budgets will be higher than 2003 levels - 42 percent say that the growth will be 5 percent or greater than last year.
New jobs will remain scarce however, with data management identified as one of the only skills areas targeted for growth. Few respondents (9 percent) anticipate layoffs this year, however 26 percent expect that some business functions will be outsourced. Half of the outsourcing is expected to be offshore.
The conference agenda included:
On February 20th, 2004, UCSD (University of California at San Diego) Extension released the results of their survey and findings about IT Governance policies and practices in San Diego at their IT Governance Conference. Fifty-three respondents (representing 44 businesses in San Diego) participated in the IT Governance survey. Of the respondents, 90 percent were IT Managers or Executives. Virtually none of this group used formal IT planning methodologies such as IT Service Management (ITSM), the Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology (COBIT) framework or the Software Engineering Institutes' Capability Maturity Model (CMM) or Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI).
- Overview of Corporate Governance and IT Governance, presented by Tracie Monk
- Optimizing Business Processes (BPO) by Cal Massey
- IT Strategic Planning and Process Monitoring by Dan Westrick, (covering CobiT, CMMI and the Balanced Scorecard
- Growing Influence of Regulations on IT by Jay Kunin, Ph.D and Joe Lesko, Special Counsel and Sarbanes Oxley advisor
- ITIL Framework and IT Service Management by David Nichols and MacKAY Management USA