What is IT Governance?

    IT (Information Technology) Governance focuses specifically on information technology systems, their performance and risk management. The primary goals of IT Governance are to assure that the investments in IT generate business value, and to mitigate the risks that are associated with IT. This can be done by implementing an organizational structure with well-defined roles for the responsibility of information, business processes, applications and infrastructure.
    IT governance should be viewed as how IT creates value that fits into the overall Corporate Governance Strategy of the organization, and never be seen as a discipline on its own. In taking this approach, all stakeholders would be required to participate in the decision making process. This creates a shared acceptance of responsibility for critical systems and ensures that IT related decisions are made and driven by the business and not vice versa.

Why it governance is necessary

    IT governance is needed to ensure that the investments in IT generate value, and mitigate IT-associated risks, avoiding failure.
    IT is central to organizational success — effective and efficient delivery of services and goods — especially when the IT is designed to bring about change in an organization. This change process, commonly referred to as “business transformation,” is now the prime enabler of new business models both in the private and public sectors. Business transformation offers many rewards, but it also has the potential for many risks, which may disrupt operations and have unintended consequences. The dilemma becomes how to balance risk and rewards when using IT to enable organizational change.

IT Governance Best Practices

    Despite efforts of the software industry to identify and adopt best practices in the development of IT projects, there is still a high rate of failure and missed objectives. Most IT projects do not meet the organization’s objectives.

Internet: www.intosaiitaudit.org
Acesso em: 15/9/2013 (com adaptações).