Anticlue

IT Governance, who makes the decision?

Who makes the call, or whose decision is it? In healthcare information technology, there still continues to be a rift in some organizations between IT direction and Business Strategy. It is disconcerting when everyone is doing something unique in a silo. There is no re-use, customization rages across systems like a Californian wild fire, and knowledge resources become viewed as clerical resources. Most HIT structures are a federalize resource. There may be the Laboratory IS, Pharmacy IT, Clinical Engineering, Departmental System Administrators, IT department, and outsourced vendors. These many pieces and parts are needed to successfully implement projects. Nothing is a 30 minute job anymore.

Managing everything on a granular micro-managerial level is just not practical in today’s day and age. What does work? A governance structure.

Governance is about specifying who has the decision rights, and who should be accountable for the decision. A decision should not be made in a vacuum. The first step is to assure proper information or input is given to help the decision maker, by providing clarity to the problem and the advantages and disadvantages of different solutions.

What decisions are needed in IT? The book, IT Governance, clarified them quite well as indicated below:

As a leader of your department, if an IT governance process is not in place, or not functioning adequately take a minute to fill out where your are. Then in your opinion organizationally, where you think you should be. Interesting isn’t it? Now the question is how to lead the change to get there? Be sure it is aligned with the organization’s goals so the outcomes are desired.

Just in case you need it, there are the governance archetypes.