Corporate governance of IT - Critical for all organizations, large or small (iTWire podcast)

Tony Austin
Tuesday, 02 December 2008 05:29

Opinion and Analysis

We are now at a point just under half way through the recording, at which point I must leave you to listen to the second half so as not to miss out on its very important content (as I have run out of both time and column space to transcribe the rest of the podcast).

Whether you are running a large organization of a tiny one, you are duty bound — legally, that is — to do a proper job as a top executive or director.

You most definitely should listen to the remainder of this interview with Mark Toomey. You will  collect extra pearls of wisdom about IT governance that will be of great assistance in meeting your obligations.

"It's a challenging concept," he says, "for a director or a top executive who's never had to deal with computers to actually stand up and ask questions about information technology. But as you start to learn from the standard there are some very, very straightforward questions that can be asked."

"One of my favorites — it's not actually written in the standard this way —but if the board has approved an IT project some time in the past, and that IT project is chugging along."

"We all know that IT projects eventually get into trouble: they run into budget problems, they run into time problems." Listen to the podcast to discover the key governance question that needs to be asked under such circumstances.

Also listen for the example Mark gives of how IT governance might be applied even to a single-person organization, and how the business principles behind effective IT governance can help organizations in difficult times.

Visit the Infonomics site to obtain information about and links to the ISO 385000 standard and other important resources.

You may enrol for the Infonomics newsletter and view other useful resources there too, things that we didn't have time to cover during the interview including presentations and brief slides (such as The Gershon Review and IT Governance).

Download the Infonomics corporate governance of IT podcast from here (MP3 format, file size 11.9 MB, duration 31:03).

I have gone to considerable lengths to arrange, record and prepare this podcast for publication (as with my previous and imminent podcasts). Has it been of interest and relevance to you?