The IT Governance Evangelist

This is the second blog inspired by a comment Rodney Sculthorpe made to my blog entitled "Who owns IT Governance, the Business or IT?" The first was entitled "How do you convince Executive Management of the merits of ITG?" In that post, I mentioned that in order to build support for ITG, you need to articulate and give evidence of the existing problems that ITG can address-an important point that deserves further exploration.   

If an organization is unaware of looming problems, then IT Governance may be perceived merely as a solution looking for a problem. In such an environment, forward-thinking types like Rodney are doomed to the frustration born of working with management in an environment where you have to wait until their butts are on fire before you can convince them to buy a bucket of water. (I couldn't resist using that analogy. I coined it recently while I was on a roll in one of my Australia meetings and then quickly apologized for my language--which I have edited for this post. The group dismissed my apology as unnecessary and recorded my quote for future use.  They also made me an honorary Aussie.)

To sell ITG, you need to find the problems and identify the pain points of your organization. This should not be difficult to do. Once you identify this pain, you need an adequate understanding of IT Governance--in its entirety--to propose an appropriate solution.

I say "adequate" understanding because, if you have read my previous posts, you know I contend that IT Governance is widely misunderstood. Many enterprises think it is just governance, risk and compliance (GRC) or just project and portfolio management (PPM) or just ITIL® and address only those subsets of the discipline. The unique problems you are facing will be solved by a subset of IT Governance, as opposed to requiring a comprehensive IT Governance framework. You need to identify what specific aspect of IT Governance addresses your problem(s).

This means you are starting small, which is a good thing. I have used this cliché countless times--you have to eat this elephant one bite at a time. Establishing and institutionalizing a reasoned and rationale IT Governance framework and its associated mechanisms is a lengthy journey, requiring audacity, courage, resilience and perseverance. It requires executive sponsorship from the CIO and other business leaders.

Most organizations are not likely to have that level of executive sponsorship out of the gate. Therefore, your first step is to solve a problem using a subset of IT Governance and deliver something valuable to the organization. This becomes the catalyst for the succeeding steps. This approach prevents you from biting off more than you can chew.  You learn from each phase, and improve your approach and results with each iteration.

Good luck. Let me know how it goes and if I can help.

As an aside, I am always on the hunt for clichés and analogies that I can use to drive home ITG.  If you have any favorites, I'd love to hear them.  

ITIL® is a Registered Trade Mark, and a Registered Community Trade Mark of the Office of Government Commerce, and is Registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.