January 15, 2008

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:

IT Governance Decisions

IT Priniciples

High level statement about how IT is used in the business

IT Architecture

Organizing logic for data, applications, and infrastructure captured in a set of policies, relationships, and technical choices to achieve desired business and technical standardization and integration

IT Infrastructure

Centrally coordinated, shared IT services which provide the foundations for the enterprise’s IT capability

IT Investment and Prioritization

Decisions about how much and where to invest in IT including project approvals and justification techniques.

Business application needs

Specifying the business need for purchased or internally developed IT applications

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.

IT Governance Arrangements

 

Decisions

IT Principles

IT Architecture

IT Infrastructure Strategies

Business Application Needs

IT Investment

Input

Decision

Input

Decision

Input

Decision

Input

Decision

Input

Decision

Business Monarchy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

IT Monarchy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Feudal

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Federal

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Duopoly

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anarchy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unknown

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

IT Governance Archetypes

Style

Who has decision or input rights?

Business Monarchy

A group of business executives or individual executives (CxOs). Includes council of senior business executives (may include CIO). Excludes executives acting independently

IT Monarchy

Individuals or groups of IT executives

Feudal

Business unit leaders, key process owners or their designees

Federal

C-level executives and business groups; may also include IT executives as additional participants.

IT Duopoly

IT executives and other group (IT liaison structure)

Anarchy

Each individual user

Posted by Elyse at 7:21 AM | Comments (0)