Infonomics
Plain language about Corporate Governance of
Information Technology for Executives and Directors
Plain language about Corporate Governance of
Information Technology for Executives and Directors
The Infonomics
Letter
Welcome to The Infonomics Letter for June 2010. Once again, my time management has failed me and it is launching on July second.
The production delay is the direct result of what appears to be another catastrophe in governance of IT. Those who have been reading The Infonomics Letter may remember the last use of such language in relation to the disastrous implementation by the Australian Customs Department of a new system for controlling imports into Australia. That time, imports into the nation were virtually halted for a period of three weeks, at the busiest time of the year. Now we have the case of the Queensland Department of Health, for which a new payroll system has generated almost continuous headlines since its launch in March.
One key difference between IT failure in government and similar events in the private sector is the level of scrutiny and enforced accountability. When IT goes wrong in business, the press may get an idea of what has happened, but typically the real detail is kept well buried. In government, the press and other stakeholders will insist that parliament discovers and discloses what went wrong. In Queensland, it is the job of the Auditor-General to investigate, report and recommend improvement.
Just as the Australian National Audit Office report on the Customs fiasco of 2005 took on the “can’t put it down” characteristics of a Stephen King novel, so too does the Auditor-General of Queensland’s report number 7 for 2010 create the simultaneous desire to put it away in despair of the failures catalogued, and the grim fascination of reading on to discover if there could have been any more profound failure to understand the very basic elements of governance, and spare 78,000 health employees the agony of wondering if their pay would ever be reliable again.
But while the audit report is once again a catalogue of governance failure, it probably could have gone further. In “Another Governance Catastrophe”, we explore the deeper issues that the Auditor-General has not explicitly covered.
There’s much more in the June Infonomics Letter. It’s now easier to find the Spanish version. There is wrap-up of Infonomics recent activity including a new presentation on governance of IT in the green context available for download. We touch briefly on two intriguing security risks; we announce a key new education partnership and a raft of events in Europe, Australia and New Zealand to help all business leaders understand and develop skills in governance of IT.
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The Infonomics Letter
Developing the Board extends the discussion on the international survey into governance and management of IT and how to resolve the problem of building board skills on governing IT .
AS/NZS 8016 – Oversight of Projects introduces a new standard to
complement ISO 38500.
Fat Fingers or Fatal Flaws we explore how some organisations seem to build computer systems expecting that their human operators are infallible.
Reports findings of the Infonomics international survey on governance and management of information technology, looking at how well organizations govern their use of information technology and hat resources are needed to improve the effectiveness of that governance?
Explore how to apply the principles for governance of IT in a domestic situation.
Keep my secrets secret, please reviews bad habits of web systems when we register as users.
ISO 38500 regards IT as a resource - a tool of business, and the standard provides guidance on how the tool should be used. Most other guidance on controlling IT is focused on development and maintenance of the tool – the supply side.
ISO 38500 can be overlaid on established frameworks to provide additional insight and control to the supply activities. But using ISO 38500 to guide the demand side drives the major benefit.
Many organisations should “Test the Future” regularly.
“How does it work again” looks at the need to retain essential corporate knowledge.
A landmark court case in Britain sets new precedents in relation to failed IT projects..
The Infonomics
Letter
Discusses the recently released report by the Australian Government's "Government 2.0 Taskforce". Explores the opportunities and issues arising, and in particular at the prospect for IT to be used to truly transform and improve the operation of the machinery of government. We introduce the notion of “Value Chain Integration” as a way of describing the process of using IT to join together and make more efficient and effective the previously separate elements of government or any other organisation.
Guest writer Jan Begg reports on her research into success of projects. Unfortunately, the best that can be said of the results is that there is enormous scope for improvement!
We note the move by Westpac Bank to establish a board committee on governance of IT and we applaud the work of Carlo Francavilla who kindly translates The Infonomics Letter into Spanish.
Announces a new forum for the LinkedIn members to discuss “Waltzing with the Elephant”.
Builds on discussion in the LinkedIn "The Enterprise Architecture Network" as the driver for a decision to present another extract from Waltzing with the Elephant, explaining what Enterprise Architecture is a vital discipline when changing organisations and their underpinning IT.
Discusses initial and very positive reaction to Waltzing with the Elephant.
Explores the recommendations in the 2008 Gershon Review of the Australian Government's use of IT, and subsequent comments by Sir Peter Gershon when he discussed the dream of world class governance of IT in the public sector.
Initial notes on an emerging trend to chief executives taking interest in IT and marshalling the executive team in setting the IT agenda.
Announces the launch date for Waltzing with the
Elephant at a
gala event in Sydney on 17 August and the subsequent business and
government launch in Melbourne just four weeks later.
Presents an extract from chapter ten, discussing
project steering committees in the context of the Performance Principle
in ISO/IEC 38500.
Follow-up discussion on governance and management of IT.
A paper by Chris Ogden: “IT Governance – Redesigning the Board’s Role”, proposes that the internet has been the watershed that drives the need for a much greater degree of board oversight and supervision of IT use.
Reprise on ISO/IEC 38500 masterclass delivered in Germany in partnership with Serview.
Explores the distinction between “IT Governance” and “IT Management”.
Australia's National Broadband Network - how we can recognise and measure success, and who is responsible for that success.The track record of government with IT initiatives.
Why the first generation of “IT Governance” has failed.
The relationship between ISO/IEC 38500 and CobiT.
Human behaviours in governance of IT compared with behaviours in other situations.
December 2008 / January 2009 Edition:
Special Edition 20 November 2008:
International Working Group on the Corporate Governance of IT.
Downloads: ISO/IEC 38500 Case Study and Discussion of The Gershon Review
Making the right decisions.
Driving Business Value from IT.
Governance of IT in difficult times;
The Gershon Report
Why ISO38500 is exciting for business;
History
The Infonomics IT Governance Letter began as a
promotional tool for Infonomics.
The first edition was published in August 2005, just eight months
after the launch of AS8015.
The mailing list was small - around 300 people.
"It will be interesting to see what happens
this week, as the system goes into full production".
Actually, we had some idea of what was going
to happen next - there had been too much noise around the project for
comfort. But nobody could
have imagined a situation that would embroil the government and bring
enormous chunks of the national supply chain to its knees.
But other pressures were
looming. Producing a 20 page journal on a monthly basis became
onerous, and then impossible. While still drawing a very strong
level of interest, the Letter succumbed to the pressure and went into
hibernation after ten editions, and a year after its launch.
Notwithstanding its temporary demise, it has been most pleasing to hear
from many subscribers that they had enjoyed it and were looking forward
to the next instalment.
So it is with great pleasure that today, September 30 2008, Infonomics
is relaunching The Infonomics Letter.
Archive
The ten original editions of The Infonomics IT
Governance Letter are always available. Just click below to
retrieve the PDF versions of each one.
August 2005