Information Technology (IT) Governance has become increasingly important as technology has expanded and new standards, processes, architectures, etc., have been implemented. IT Governance is the development of leadership and organizational structures and processes that ensure that an organization's IT sustains and extends the organization's strategies and objectives. An organization's IT may include those processes involved in the study, design, development, implementation, support, and management of computer-based hardware and software systems. IT can also include the dissemination of information through communication and collaboration during the development stages of hardware and/or software systems.
IT Governance allows stakeholders, board members, managers, etc., to take more active roles in the development, implementation, support, and management of computer-based systems, such as hardware and software systems. This allows multiple persons and/or teams to communicate and collaborate with one another in order to share their expertise and ensure that a quality end product is produced. However, the quantity of communications and the degree of collaboration required to perform IT Governance tasks can be very time consuming.
For example, an IT Governance task, such as a new application, may be contemplated by an applications team. However, before the team can begin creating the new application, the team may need to check with a number of predefined teams, e.g., a standards team to determine what standards may be applicable to the new application. Depending on the complexity, this process may take days, weeks, or even months. Moreover, additional teams may need to be consulted, such as an asset reuse team to determine whether existing assets may be used to create the new application or whether new assets should be created for the new application. Once again, this process may take days, weeks, or even months. As the number of teams that need to be consulted increase, the amount of time required to reach agreements and strategic decisions on what path to take in a solution implementation increases. This increase in time can lead to massive product delays as well as lost revenue.