Information Technology Governance Versus Higher Education

Round 1

The concept of information technology governance is a unique one in itself. Most people view IT governance as a way to strictly manage personnel an A information technology organization. This is the first major flaw in the overall view of IT governance. Governance breaks down into two major functions the primary function is to align IT strategy with a institutional vision and goals, the second strategy is to ensure everyone is playing by the same rules ( I.E. Documentation, Process Control, Audit Compliance and Transfer of Knowledge from Employee to Employee ).

Round 2

The overall concept of information technology governance becomes more difficult when you add in the fact that most IT organizations in higher education are based on a customer service model. It's not the fact that we are customer focused that becomes the major issue; the major issue comes into play when you have multiple customers that have competing priority's. Students number one priority is more and more new and cool technology that makes their life easier, administration's priority is more and more data to drive decisions and to document business and finance activities, and faculties overall priority is to apply the technologies that they see fit to educate the students of tomorrow without making their lifes any more difficult or complex. The three competing priorities are on such opposite ends of the spectrum it becomes a unique balancing act to have a true vision of the mission and goals of a higher education organization.

Round 3

The overall concept of IT governance to information technology staff simply means more more paperwork than know one every reads. This is one of the major perceptions that will kill any implementation of a governance strategy. In today's society in a highly competitive technology market, where each individual needs unique skill sets and multiple years of experience. The overall concept of spending their time documenting every step they take is simply unacceptable,.

Round 4

How to implement a information technology governance strategy

(4.1) Do not ever use the word governance

( 4.2) implement a five-year information technology strategic plan, always remember this is not a plan that is developed inside information technology. This plan must be developed in consultation with students, staff, faculty and administration. I have added a link to the Hudson Valley community college five year plan this is by far one of the best.plans I have ever seen, it has clear direction of the organizational goals as well as clear support from all constituents.

(4.3) Begin the journey of documentation slowly, the first step in documentation should be desktop manuals for every position in your department, these manuals simply are step-by-step instructions on the activities for each position in your department. So if a person runs a particular report once a month, they would be screenshots as well as instructions on how to run that report. Be aware there is no such thing as a complete desktop manual but most of them should capture 75% to 80% of a person's activities. It is not the day-to-day activities we need to capture in the desktop manuals it is the unique once or twice a year activities that must be captured in this way. The desktop manuals will have a immediate positive impact on your department, the first time a employee leaves and a new employee comes in it will cut back the training time significantly or if a employee is sick and a mother employee needs to complete a necessary task they can always referred to the manual.

(4.4) Introduce Service Level Agreements (SLA), believe it or not SLA's are one of the easiest things to implement in any organization. The conversation sort of go's like this I am talking to a faculty member about the use of the SLA, I explained to him or her that the SLA will help my organization track how quickly we respond to issues and how satisfied they are with our overall services. This conversation repeats itself with all of the other organization stakeholders students, staff and administrators. Now here comes the really cool part I come back to my people in my department and explained a SLA will help set expectations with the community, we can start avoiding those immediate turnaround call (I.E. I forgot I need this report for very important meeting in 20 minutes), by avoiding these emergency calls and setting reasonable expectations with the community, you have now given the staff in information technology more leeway to do their job well. Now I've sold SLA to all important constituents, this gives me several things it introduces the need for documentation as well as it allows you to tide documentation to performance. Always remember it is not the point of SLA to be punitive to anyone the point is to set reasonable expectations of service from the community as well as the information technology staff. And it also looks very nice in the annual report when you can meet service level goals

(4.5) step We are almost there, implementing strong change control policy for all ERP applications, this will be the hardest task you will face in any organization. Our customers hold a true belief that they should be able to have the system modify to meet their every needs, you will never convince a customer that they should do a business process analysis and fit their business processes to your enterprise system. By implementing a strong policy and a committee to review all request you will accomplish several things. You will have the necessary documentation for any audit the documents will also serve as justifications for changes. In 7 to 10 years when you go to implement a new ERP system this documentation will also help you with understanding exactly what modifications you made to your old system and why. You must always remember with employee turnover in this highly competitive market we lose a great deal of institutional knowledge each and every year. This documentation will save your life if not your job one day. If you can manage to implement a strong change control policy that benefits will greatly outweigh the liabilities.

( 4.6) Now and only now after completing all the steps above should you use the word Information Technology Governance. At this point in time you should begin by identifying which IT governance strategy that suits your organization, COBIT, ITEL or one of the many others. After picking a IT governance strategy you should introduce the concept to your IT managers with the proper training. Please remember you are already following the major steps of most information technology governance plans, the point now is 100% communication with a clear vision of the benefits of a formal plan. I cannot stress enough this is a public relations battle at this point the work has already been done.