A robust governance team is crucial for any organization that uses IT. IT governance departments play a vital role in establishing rules, policies, and processes throughout the organization. Furthermore, the size and workload of an IT governance team are proportional to the organization’s size. So, what does the IT governance department in a company do? What are the IT governance team’s roles and responsibilities? In this article at IT Chronicles, Terry Brown sheds light on the same.
Difference Between IT Governance and Management
IT governance and IT management are interchangeably used within an organization. Management and governance are not the same and have different responsibilities. “Governance is concerned with using and regulating influence to direct and control the actions and affairs of management and others,” says Brown. Governance is often the responsibility of the board of directors under the leadership of the chairperson. The governance responsibilities also include:
- Ensuring adherence to the process.
- Evaluating agreed-on enterprise objectives.
- Monitoring performance, compliance, and progress against direction and objectives.
- Ensuring the implementation of guidelines and strategies.
- Taking actions for resolving the identified issues.
On the other hand, IT management is about planning, building, running, and monitoring activities aligned with enterprise objectives. It is the governance body that sets the direction for IT management teams. Management is responsible for maintaining the daily business operations. Some IT management responsibilities include planning new software releases or guiding the development team on what to work on next.
IT Governance Roles
The governance framework must include the levels of authority and responsibility for each role. Typically, there are four levels of IT governance roles. Every role has a distinct purpose with a specific authority for decision-making. The highest level of IT governance responsibilities is strategic. Here the governance team focuses on the alignment between the IT and the business strategy. The next level of governance roles includes the executive level. This team focuses on prioritizing the critical IT projects, allocating resources, and ensuring their success. The third layer comprises program and business process governance. They are formed on an ad-hoc basis to meet specific project needs. The fourth layer of the IT governance role is the operations level. The team primarily focuses on the governance of incidents, problems, and approving change requests.
To read the original article, click on https://itchronicles.com/it-governance/it-governance-roles-and-responsibilities/.
