Q1: Developing IT governance
As organisations grow, effective IT governance becomes more and more necessary. With computing technology integrated into the facets of everyday life, many organisations are entrusted and responsible for the confidential business and personal information of clients and customers. As one might expect, there are now many regulations imposed on how to store, protect and recover (if lost) such data. All that said, IT governance is not a universal tool that works the same way in all organisations.
The scale of an organisation determines its IT needs, which in turn affects the level of required IT governance. Luckily, this governance need not be derived without guidance.There are some general best practices from which to extrapolate from. With that thought in mind, for this Discussion, assume your manager came to you and asked you to develop (or revise) the IT governance for your organisation:What would be the five steps that you would initially take and why?
To complete this Discussion
Post: Create an initial post in which you recommend five initial steps for developing or revising the IT governance for an organisation you work for or are familiar with. Explain why you would recommend these steps and justify your reasoning with (at minimum) general best practices in IT governance, the IT requirements of your selected organisation and any IT regulation your organisation needs to adhere to. Furthermore, explain why you would take your recommended steps in the order you suggested. Be sure to also provide a brief summary of your selected organisation to provide context.
Q2: IT portfolio management
A key objective often associated with IT governance is that of IT portfolio management. Essentially, this consists of the entirety of an organisation's IT resources. However, these IT resources are not merely the tangible pieces of technology employed by an organisation. These resources consist of IT-related costs, risks and value, existing IT projects, continual IT services and so on. Moreover, as an organisation grows and an enterprise expands, effectively managing an IT portfolio is all the more imperative.
Regardless of size, however, every organisation should have some form of common process for managing its IT portfolio. There has to be a means of evaluating the overall value being delivered to the organisation from its IT resources. For this Discussion, your challenge is to analyse best practices for managing an IT portfolio and examine ways in which to add value to an organisation.
To complete this Discussion
Post: Create an initial post in which you analyse how an IT portfolio can help add to the overall value being delivered to an organisation. In your analysis, address how an IT portfolio can reduce the proportion of the IT budget spent on maintenance. Also, explain how making IT spending more transparent, in order to simplify the technology environment, adds value.