IT is an increasingly autonomous force challenging the past conventions and future expectations of how the enterprise asserts itself. Does the organization have to restrain IT, or will IT redefine how the organization can be an enterprise?
5. Who Cares?
IT is a resource. Business people who think about IT think mainly about what it takes to get
the right kind of IT “implemented” for the right reason. The primary reason is always the
same: to exploit automation in a way that increases the chance of producing business
benefits, yet decreases the chance of production being detrimental. That combination is
the generic formula for “value” to the business.
If production was a no-risk proposition, all businesses would try many more ways to get
what they want.
Productivity risk is a huge driver of selective IT implementation. Automation makes
production failure seem unlikely, or at least seem less likely.
But the effects of automation are not always beneficial. Changes in goals, strategy, or
circumstances affecting opportunity can make implemented automation, and/or its source,
a resistor instead of a facilitator.
Knowing what IT is doing, and knowing what it takes to change it, is in the best interest of
parties that are responsible for goals, strategy and circumstances.
6. Governance and Direction of IT
Governing the enterprise creates a culture from
the environment of the business and attends to
prime directives constraining the business.
Governing the business directs the activity of
commerce and attends to primary objectives.
Governing the company creates the operations
perspective that predisposes meaningful
decisions regarding the influences of IT.
Governing the organization protects
stakeholders having the above dependencies on
I.T.
→ Increasingly, IT dominates both the
recognition and the constitution of the
culture
→ Increasingly, IT formulates and tracks the
activity
→ Increasingly, IT executes and supervises the
organization of responsibilities and
processes run as operations.
→ Increasingly, IT utilization reflects
organizational-level decisions instead of
company-level decision-making.
Governors direct resources throughout the
chain of influences on producing benefits.
Meanwhile, IT challenges past conventions
and drives future expectations
8. What is “Value”?
Value comes from a specific kind of result.
The result is a difference that has been made.
Value is the importance of the difference, not just the difference per se.
The same difference may have different meaning in different circumstances. Because of
that, a single difference can have multiple values.
A specified value is determined by the circumstances in which the difference occurs.
Value – the significance of a difference – is recognized in a context.
In the context, the significance may be positive (opportunity of benefit) or negative (risk of
detriment).
Therefore, value may be positive or negative.
9. Influencing and directing Value for business
In a given context, value can be a benefit. Directors guide value. The main interest of
directors is to create a reliable “delivery” of value within the desired context.
The main enablers of delivery are the investments and operations that allow appropriate
outcomes to be produced on request, providing values.
Investments and operations share a point of view: that operational outcomes are subject to
certain ways of using resources and the relationships that channel them.
The resources and relationships are the environment from which value is derived.
Investment creates and sustains the environment. Operations produce value from it.
To obtain the intended value, direction is applied to influence operations.
Actual value delivered involves affects on assets in three ways recognizable as ROI:
• Diminishes prior assets
• Modifies prior assets
• Adds to prior assets
The directorial challenge is to allow substantive value to be
created and recognized both for current and future priorities.
10. A Glossary of Stake-holding
A stake is the dependency on a condition in which an investment has been made
Capital is the tangible and intangible assets available to commit to a goal as investments
Constraints are non-discretionary conditions imposed on ongoing opportunities
Administration is policy-based decision-making about the distribution (including access) of
resources for production and support
Performance is the measureable degree of intended value that is delivered
16. A Glossary of IT Stakes
An objective is a measurable target future state
A need is a circumstance of insufficient means or state for an objective
A requirement is a specified characteristic demanded of a provided action, item or
condition
Demand is a level of requested receipt of a deliverable
Capability is reliable availability of a functionality
Fulfillment is a process of meeting demand by delivering supply
Effectiveness is the degree to which a method’s targeted level of output is achieved
Quality is a degree of compatibility provided with satisfying a requirement
Assurance is a promise of guaranteeing intended effect
Ensure is an activity guaranteeing intended effect
A service is an operations output that is deliverable on demand under terms of agreement
A resource is an asset designated for attaining an objective
17. The Governance Scenario
Stakeholders in the business expect business opportunities to be cultivated and protected.
The relationship of the business to other entities, and of itself and those entities to the
environment, is in effect the ecology of those opportunities.
Cultivation and protection of that ecology falls under governance.
In that environment, the activity that it fosters, including generating and maintaining the
relationships, falls under two general categories of assessment: performance, and
capability. In turn, the activity can alter the environment as well as conserve it.
Today, IT predetermines the ecology of business operations by dominating both
performance and capability. IT is used to create, execute and control most of the critical
modes of interaction that produce and exploit the opportunities needed by a business.
Governance needs to “manage” that ecology.
18. What is IT Governance?
“The primary focus of IT governance is the stewardship of IT resources on behalf of
various stakeholders whose ranking is established by the organisation's governing body.”*
“Stewardship is an ethic that embodies the responsible planning and management
of resources.”*
Governance coordinates the assurance of stewardship.
• Responsibility is for ensuring appropriate resource utilization
• Planning and management coordinate propriety.
• A framework of governance provides explicit supportive guidance of the coordination.
* definition supplied via Wikipedia
19. Resource Alignment
What is “appropriate” utilization?
Capability and performance distinguish a business’s competency and health, and establish
its presence.
The presence of a business in its environment is characterized by its forms and behaviors
among other businesses and customers.
Investment in IT utilization is a critical success factor of implementing the forms and
behaviors of the business.
The logic of the “IT investments” is based on aligning IT-enabled capability and
performance to the requirements and benefits of business stakeholders.
The investment’s dependency on that alignment is the “stake” that the investor has in the
utilized IT.
RESOURCE
20. The Challenge of Directing IT
IT stakeholders look for beneficial conservation of their IT stake, by “cultivating and
protecting” the investment made. The cultivation and protection is organized as the
directorial influence of governance.
“IT Governance” is most strongly challenged by two huge forces.
The additional challenge is any combined instances of performance pressure (from
unchanged perspectives) and discontinuity (from innovation).
Performance management intentionally imposes a certain
concept of effectiveness on the acknowledgement of
operational outcomes, while discouraging other
perspectives.
Technology and service innovation intentionally obsolete
prior incumbent systems and standards, while often not
bringing compensating management or realignment with
its occurrence.
The other is the increasingly pervasive development
of Autonomous IT – capabilities as driven by
ongoing technology and services innovation.
One of them is Return on Investment (ROI), as driven
by current practices of performance management.
21. Pressure of Performance Management
Performance Management supplies an idea of what kind of outcomes are appropriate to
(i.e., planned for) business goals. Typically, its “propriety” is based on relevance to
productivity for profit. Profit supplies the justification for investments being made.
In less-than-ideal circumstances, alternative objectives to profit exist but, conventionally, are
frequently suppressed as justifications for investment. The impact on investments is twofold:
• investments not correlating with profit outcomes stop being used as incentives for
management
• Profitable outcomes with no longer-term benefit are distractions that drive a wedge
between current priorities and attention to future opportunity
The exceptions to the above are “business models” that define non-profit gains as the
primary business benefits. In effect, these models declare certain capabilities (for example:
service types, or market share growth) as the business goal of stakeholders.
The governance requirement, therefore, is to apply a clear and appropriate business model
to the interpretation and alignment of any means (whether internal or external) of enabling
capabilities.
28. Levels of Governance
Beneficial opportunity is the general goal of every business. Each business pursues its
selected opportunities in accordance with its managed capabilities.
Under guided coordination, resources flow through practices into creating capabilities that
are useful for the business.
Neither level of governance above can suffice to do the job of both levels.
A Company level of governance addresses the
opportunity-enabling capabilities supported by IT
An IT Organization level of governance addresses the
capability-enabling practices that stabilize and direct the
necessary usage of IT.
33. IT organization stakes
The IT organization centralizes performance management of IT services and quality
management of IT resources. That management, in both forms, is applied across the full
lifecycle of IT’s introduction into business operations throughout its use and final exit.
But stakeholders do not presume performance and quality; stakeholders presume
operational propriety by their organization, and they assume that impropriety is risk.
The propriety refers to the correct way to fulfill demand.
The IT organization can meet the presumption by using investments to produce the service
performance and resource quality itself, and then to provide it. (“Produce” means to buy,
build or borrow in order to obtain.)
Where the business has a dependency on the IT organization as its provider, the business is
a stakeholder in the IT organization.
Where the IT organization has a dependency on technology to enable its production, the
organization is a stakeholder in the technology.
34. Operational Propriety:
Responsibilities compared
• Oversight
• Accountability of needed value from administering operations
• Compares value maintained to value required
• Administration
• Management of duties, responsibilities, rules
• Creates information needed for accountability
• Management
• Producing and sustaining co-operation, usually towards multiple objectives
35. Optimization Requirement and Risk
For the business, the goal of optimization is to maintain opportunity, not to maximize
performance.
Resource optimization aligns the utilization of the resource with the stakeholder’s intended
benefit.
But change alters the potentials of alignment. Change can alter the degree and/or the
duration of resource alignment, as well as the logic of the alignment method.
Change is the critical constraint on optimization and is increasingly the primary source of
risk.
Managing change to a targeted outcome involves strategy, authority, and co-operation.
IT Governance must itself be a business strategy for overseeing the impact of change
versus opportunity.
36. IT Governance of technology
Governance is intended to optimize IT utilization. As the primary objective of optimization,
propriety is established by ensuring appropriate effects of IT resource usage.
For stakeholders, resource optimization occurs primarily in administration. Administration
is defined as “the act of managing duties, responsibilities, or rules.”* With IT, this means
administration of operational systems involving:
• Information (both inhabiting and monitoring technology; related to policy)
• Technology (producing both information and processing; related to architecture)
• Workgroups (leveraging both information and technology; related to production
methods)
But increasingly, these systems are developing faster outside of company control than
within it. How is internal administration reconciled with self-developing or externally
developing systems?
* http://www.yourdictionary.com/administration
38. Timely, Compatible, IT-based Capability
Broker – business advocate
Agent – provider advocate
Capability is a reliable availability of functionality
Fulfillment is a process of meeting demand by delivering supply
Effectiveness is the degree to which a method’s targeted level of output is achieved
Quality is a degree of compatibility provided with satisfying a requirement
Assurance is a promise of guaranteeing intended effect
Ensure is an activity guaranteeing intended effect
A service is an operations output that is deliverable on demand under terms of agreement.
A resource is an asset designated for attaining an objective.
An objective is a measurable target future state
A need is a circumstance of insufficient means or state for an objective
A requirement is a specified characteristic demanded of a provided action, item or condition
Demand is a requested level of receipt of a deliverable
Governance institutes
authority to insist on
co-operation.
A broker-agent model of
co-operation, based on
agreed assurance of
reliability, continually
refreshes alignment.
44. Governance in IT Operations
IT operations management (ITOM) software is intended to
represent all the tools needed to manage the provisioning,
capacity, performance and availability of the computing,
networking and application environment.
Gartner divides the ITOM market into 10 major segments that
include DBMS, application management, availability and
performance, event, fault and log management, network
management, configuration management, IT services desk
and IT help desk, asset management, job scheduling and
other ITOM (which refers to output management software) for
tools used to manage hardware peripherals, such as printers.
The objective of IT Operations Management is to monitor and
control the IT services and IT infrastructure.
IT Operations Management executes day-to-day routine tasks
related to the operation of infrastructure components and
applications. – ITIL 2007
According to the United States Department of Education,
operations management is the field concerned with managing
and directing the physical and/or technical functions of
a firm or organization, particularly those relating to
development, production, and manufacturing.*
Operations management is an area
of management concerned with overseeing, designing, and
controlling the process of production and
redesigning business operations in the production
of goods or services. It involves the responsibility of ensuring
that business operations are efficient in terms of using as few
resources as needed, and effective in terms of meeting
customer requirements. – Wikipedia
A Survey of “Influence” on IT alignment
45. Management Standards
• ITC Standard
• Strategy and Governance defines the direction and the way of managing ICT.
• Its significance increases when the company faces a transition or aggressively pursues
growth and development.
• Optimally, ICT is a change promoting engine with the ability to implement changes in a
controlled manner. However, if Strategy and Governance is dysfunctional, ICT easily
becomes the bottleneck for the company’s overall development.
-- https://www.ictstandard.org/book/strategy-and-governance/overview
46. Autonomous IT: Decisions
• Machine Learning and Intelligent Systems
• Machine learning plays an increasingly important role in our lives, whether it's ranking
search results, recommending products or building better models of the environment.
The development of more efficient and powerful tools to support the engineering
practices of machine learning is strongly needed. Tools and methods that let non-experts
do a great job with their own predictive modeling are needed to truly empower users
with machines that learn.
• - See more at:
http://www.eweek.com/database/slideshows/ieee-picks-top-23-technologies-for-
2022.html?kc=EWKNLEAU09162014STR1&dni=167411619&rni=25786451#sthash.lryoyW4T.dpuf
47. Autonomous IT: Processes
• The Internet of Things
• From clothes that monitor our movements to smart homes and cities, the Internet of
things (IoT) knows no bounds, except for our concerns about ensuring privacy amid such
convenience. The IoT is here to stay, driven by, among others, device technology
advances, the opportunities created by the billions of smartphones with their rich built-
in sensors, Internet connectivity to fixed facilities, increased mobile connectivity, the new
functionalities it enables and business reasons, such as the desire to reduce cost through
automation, reduced loss/wastage and shorter durations for supply chains, the report
said.
• - See more at:
http://www.eweek.com/database/slideshows/ieee-picks-top-23-technologies-for-
2022.html?kc=EWKNLEAU09162014STR1&dni=167411619&rni=25786451#sthash.lryoyW4T.dpuf
48. Autonomous IT: Infrastructure
• Cloud Computing:
By 2022, cloud will be more entrenched and more computing workloads will run on the
cloud. The real promise of cloud computing is the way that it changes the game for
software development. IT administrators and developers will have the ability to create
true virtual data center infrastructure substrates, where resources are connected
virtually across clouds and premises, and developers are able to tap into APIs of services
to mash up applications and middleware from different providers.
• - See more at:
http://www.eweek.com/database/slideshows/ieee-picks-top-23-technologies-for-
2022.html?kc=EWKNLEAU09162014STR1&dni=167411619&rni=25786451#sthash.lryoyW4T.dpuf