IT Governance Roles and Responsibilities

Having an effective IT governance framework in place will help you to safeguard your organisation against an information security breach. At the same time, your IT governance framework would lead to more opportunities for your business.

By ensuring that your IT structures are accurately integrated with your business and in synchronization with your overall business goals, an organisation will be in an advantageous position to drive through changes and improvements. Establishing an IT governance framework is critical for the success of both IT projects and the larger scale projects that need support from across the whole organisation.

IT Governance department is the department that carries the role of describing and managing the business application processes and policies throughout the organisation. IT Governance department is usually managed by a team or individual based on the organisation size.

IT governance also works to align your IT and business vision. The primary objective of IT governance roles and responsibilities is to ensure the policies and strategies that are designed are applied in a way that helps the business to meet the objectives.

The IT governance roles include:

• Implementation of guidelines and strategies:

Guideline act as a direction for the businesses to follow. Therefore, a well-planned strategy for every department within an organisation are crucial steps to take in.

• Adherence to processes:

The IT governance department plays a major role to ensure adherence to these processes as per guidelines. If misuse or improper usage of policies, the team should take corrective actions immediately to fix the non-compliance.

• Resolving identified issues:

The governance team also takes care of all issues related to the policies and processes and actions of addressing the issues is required in this role. The governance team usually get a helping hand from the IT Service Management team who focuses on incidents and approves change requests.

The Governance responsibilities:

Governance is applied by regulating influence to guide and control the actions and affairs of management and the rest of the organisation. The person or team who carries the responsibility for governance is accountable for the performance and conformance of the company. The basics of the IT governance team in any organisation should include the design, implementation and on-going compliance with these five responsibilities:

1. Determine the objectives for IT

The objectives explain the purpose of IT and define how the organisation will fulfil the purpose. The objectives often included IT vision or mission statements and implementation by using a strategic IT plan.

2. Design and implement the IT governance framework

The framework design blueprint should include the objectives for IT, policies, governance principles, IT Governance roles with responsibilities and processes. The framework must be aligned with the organization’s governance responsibilities and support the achievement of the organisation’s goals and objectives that aim to achieve. A framework that builds is recommended to utilise the industry standards and best practice frameworks such as COBIT as reference guides. The framework should be reviewed regularly and updated whenever required.

3. Define the ethics of the IT organization

Organisation ethics are usually based on morals and values. The rules or standards set shall shape how IT staff at all levels conduct performance within the organisation and set expectations of behaviours from each of them.

4. Create the culture of the IT organization

Create a culture that motivates IT staff to interact with people that is outside the IT domain. IT Governance success is depending on the team who takes responsibility seriously. Cultural change has to be led and nurtured by the top of IT to make it happen. An effective governance culture is the heart of the IT governance system where the people are willing to be governed and support the IT governance.

5. Ensure compliance

Ensuring compliance is an ongoing governance responsibility. It designs to ensure that IT continually meets any regulatory, statutory and legal obligations to support the organisation’s objectives while working within the defined ethical and cultural frameworks.

Figure 1: The Key IT Governance Roles and Responsibility by LinkedIn: Sherif Galal

This is an ongoing governance responsibility. It aims to ensure that IT continually meets any regulatory, statutory, and legal obligations to support the organization’s objectives while working within the defined ethical and cultural framework, and follows the IT governance framework. Compliance also includes checking that the IT governance roles and responsibilities are still relevant.

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