The Infonomics
Letter
Last month’s Infonomics Letter generated a great deal of follow-up discussion. It’s great to know that readers are taking a keen interest in the debate, especially considering that the international working group formed by the joint technical committee of ISO and the IEC has completed its first meeting and is getting under way.
There are many ways to expand the discussion and debate, and I am delighted to publish the views of other well-informed commentators and innovators. London based Chris Ogden is a widely experienced consultant and executive coach, who has independently developed his views on the evolution of IT use in business. In “IT Governance – Redesigning the Board’s Role”, Chris proposes that the emergence of the internet has been the watershed that drives the need for a much greater degree of board oversight and supervision of IT use.
Thanks to the ubiquity of the internet that Chris discusses, I was able to transmit last month’s Infonomics Letter from Bad Homburg in Germany, where I spent two days explaining ISO/IEC 38500 to 24 delegates from Germany and other parts of Europe. My host for this event was Dr Gisela Boendgen, of Serview GmbH. Gisela and her colleagues did a superb job in organising the two full day masterclass sessions, and it was a great pleasure to deliver the content in their purpose-built residential education centre, complete with Irish Pub!
There are significant developments in the wings for the Infonomics education agenda, and these will be announced in the near future. But right now my major priority is to finalise and publish the book that I know many are patiently awaiting. It’s nearly there, and details of availability will be in the July Infonomics Letter.
Debate about the distinction between “IT Governance” and “IT Management” is building. For years now, we have seen the IT industry using the words interchangeably, or trying to distinguish between higher and lower levels of management by referring to the higher level as “governance”.
Calling something governance without any further explanation does nothing except create confusion. Distinguishing between governance and management requires an understanding of how governance and management mesh together to provide effective overall control and oversight of an organisation, with respect to how it uses IT.
This challenge was discussed at the inaugural meeting of the new ISO/IEC Workgroup on Governance of IT in London in May 2009. Mark Toomey's paper to the workgroup meeting is reproduced in the May 2009 edition of The Infonomics Letter.
The Infonomics
Letter
Governance of IT in Government looks at the perceived poor track record of government with IT initiatives.
Has “IT Governance” Failed explores why the first generation of “IT Governance” has failed.
CobiT and ISO/IEC 38500 looks at the relationship between ISO/IEC 38500 and CobiT..
Draws parallels between the human behaviours in governance of IT with the behaviours observed relating to the Black Saturday bushfires Victoria and the ditching of a crippled Airbus.
December 2008 / January 2009 Edition:
Special Edition 20 November 2008:
International Working Group on the Corporate Governance of Information Technology announced;
New downloads - presentation slides from recent briefing sessions - ISO/IEC 38500 Case Study and ACS discussion of The Gershon Review
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Making the right decisions for the present
and the future.
Driving Business Value from
Investment in IT.
Governance of IT in difficult times;
The Gershon Report
Why ISO38500 is exciting for business;
How ISO 38500 works with frameworks such as CobiT.
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