The Who, What, and How of governance in IT can be tricky to nail down. As IT advisors, knowing the answer to these questions and communicating them clearly to our customers are key to them adopting the right governance processes. Join Hamish Denston as he outlines issues around governance and provides some strategic guides that you can implement in your business.
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Planning for Success - governance with Hamish Denston
1. PROUDLY BROUGHTTOYOU BY:
P R O V O K E S O L U T I O N s
Planning for successEffective business governance of technology solutions
Hamish Denston
DUX Team Lead, Wellington
2. P R O V O K E S O L U T I O N s
Introducing…
W h o A m I ?
W h y a r e w e h e r e ?
3. P R O V O K E S o l u t i o n s
Governance
W h a t d o w e m e a n b y
g o v e r n a n c e i n t h i s
c o n t e x t ?
How do we
prepare for
the
system?
How do we
use the
system?
How do we
maintain
the
system?
How do we
improve
the
system?
Create the framework
4. P R O V O K E S O L U T I O N s
Prepare
P l a n n i n g t o s u c c e e d
5. P R O V O K E S o l u t i o n s
Like what?
F o r e x a m p l e …
Ownership & Steering
Change
Operation
Maintenance
Training & Support
Plan for:
6. P R O V O K E S O L U T I O N s
The Matrix
W h o a …
7. P R O V O K E S o l u t i o n s
Alignment
E v e r y t h i n g Z e n
Strategy?
Culture?Policy?
Do you have
8. P R O V O K E S O L U T I O N s
Ownership
W h e r e d o e s t h e b u c k
s t o p ?
9. P R O V O K E S O L U T I O N s
Steering
W h o d o e s i t ?
W h a t d o t h e y d o ?
H o w d o t h e y d o i t ?
10. P R O V O K E S O L U T I O N s
Business as usual
W h a t n e e d s d o i n g ?
W h o ’ s g o i n g t o d o i t ?
11. P R O V O K E S o l u t i o n s
Business Rules
F o r e n d u s e r s
What type of files can be stored in the
system
What content is appropriate to upload or
publish
File naming conventions
Publishing style guide
Community and social feature guidelines
for use and moderation
Store all files in the EDRMS
Create meaningful metadata against files
Define
12. P R O V O K E S o l u t i o n s
Tasks
F o r A d m i n i s t r a t o r s
Any changes to structure or navigation
Adding new sites or libraries
Management of centralised metadata and
content types
Content lifecycle management
User permissions management
1st level support
Training and documentation
Responsible for
13. P R O V O K E S o l u t i o n s
Tasks
F o r T e c h n i c a l s t a f f
Performance monitoring and
management
Database management
Bug fixes
Minor enhancements
2nd level support
3rd party products
Responsible for
Prepare = identifying strategic alignment, creating or aligning with policies, gaining a mandate and buy-in for change.
Use = What are the business rules around using the system? What can and can’t we do with it?
Maintain = What are all the tasks required for the continued smooth operation of the system, and who will carry them out?
Enhance = How do we identify ways to improve the system, and how to make this happen?
It can be as big or small as you need, and it is a living thing that can adapt in response to your changing understanding of your needs.
"By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail." - Benjamin Franklin
You want to have an answer that any user, administrator or owner might have, before the system is even in place.
What sort of things will you do in preparation for governance?
Who owns the system? They will have the final say on decisions to do with the system. They may hold the budget that maintenance and changes come out of. Is a new, distinct budget required?
Who steers the ship? That is, who should have input into major decisions around the system? How do matters get escalated to this group?
How are smaller BAU changes managed?
How can you make sure your users know how to work the system? Do you have the appropriate capability and maturity to manage the system?
What are the procedures for routine maintenance?
How? Create a governance matrix that covers these areas (detailed on previous slide). You don’t need to populate everything ahead of time, but the matrix should capture:
All the decisions that need to be made
Who needs to make the decision
When they need to have something in place to address the item
A record of the decision
The matrix can then become a reference guide for users of the system of who, what, when and how.
Strategic alignment = how will this system and related processes enable you to meet your strategic goals? If you are implementing a tool to enable certain actions to fix a problem or reach a goal, is your business in a position to realise the potential of the technology?
Policy = Do you have policies in place that the system must adhere to? If not, do you need to write one? Is there legislation or regulation that apply to the system or its content? Who is responsible for maintaining policies and process documentation?
Culture = Do we need to fundamentally change the way we work to derive benefit from this system?
Ownership & decision making
Who owns the system? If there are multiple distinct uses of the solution with multiple owners, who owns it?
Why is ownership important?
- Who can make decisions about changes and enhancements?
- How are these going to be funded? Questions of funding are crucial. If there is a set budget for enhancements, whose is it? The business or IT?
Make recommendations to the system owner on things like:
Priority of bug fixes
Priority of performance improvements
Priority of new feature requests
based on their critical evaluation of inputs like:
System performance testing
Usability review and testing
User feedback (aggregate, formal or casual)
Requests for new features
Who should be involved?
The owner
Stakeholders (users)
IT
Size this to suit your organisation
Processes
How to identify an enhancement vs a fix
What is the threshold for an enhancement to become a project? What processes does this need to interface with? E.g. business case process
What’s the process for users to raise issues that aren’t bugs? E.g. performance, availability, improvements etc.
What are the tasks required to maintain the system?
From an end user perspective? = e.g. Store files in the right site/library, contribute to wikis etc.
From an administrator perspective? = e.g. Manage user access to sites, add new sites in response to user requests etc.
From a platform perspective? = e.g. performance reporting, storage management etc.
Where are these responsibilities defined and recorded? How are they communicated to users? How are they monitored/enforced?