Term Project – IT Governance
Overall Scope:
You are required to study of IT Governance in a business organization of your choice as per the Weill-Ross framework, develop of the Governance Arrangement Matrix (GAM) of the organization, and comment on the effectiveness of the Governance Mechanisms.
Deliverables: Write-up and presentation
Specific deliverables/guidelines:
In line with the above, the following may be the specific contents of your findings/write-ups as well as the presentation. But then, these are indicative. You are free to decide to add any more relevant information. 1. Intro to the Company and Business Principles (Vision statement, broad enterprise level functions and unit level functions of the organization etc) 2. Role of IT in the organization & the IT Principles 3. The IT Governance Arrangements Matrix (sample shown below) 4. Various governance mechanisms implemented (enterprise wide and in the units) along with the advantages and disadvantages 5. Suggested IT Governance improvement needs

IT Decision | IT Principles | IT Arch | IT Infra | Business Need | IT Investment | Archetype | Input | Decision | Input | Decision | Input | Decision | Input | Decision | Input | Decision | Biz Monarchy | | | | | | | | | | √ | IT Monarchy | | | | √ | | | | | | | Feudal | | | | | | | | | | | Federal | √ | | | | √ | | √ | | √ | | IT Duopoly | | √ | √ | | | √ | | √ | | | Anarchy | | | | | | | | | | |

Group presentations will be during the sessions 7, 8 and 9 (3 or 4 groups per class).
You need to submit the soft copies of the presentations.

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Q4) Enterprise Architecture Governance Framework:
Architecture governance is a set of mechanisms through which architecture is enabled in the enterprise. It consists of more than the processes because it’s an integrated set of dimensions providing the mechanisms for defining, implementing, managing and measuring the effectiveness of the enterprise architecture disciplines. It provides the direction and control ensuring that the expected value of its investment in IT is realized. It’s also responsible for taking up external influences like global business drivers, industry trends, corporate strategy as well as technology trends and opportunities to identify how the enterprise architecture needs to adopt in order to accommodate them.

Fig.: Enterprise Architecture Governance Framework (Source; Infosys Ltd.)

Infosys considers 7 dimensions of enterprise architecture governance to be critical constituents of a successful enterprise architecture: * Leadership * Organization * Investment * Processes * Policies & Principles * Measurements * Enabling Tools

Leadership:
To establish control and propagate a shared vision across the organization without conflicts, it’s required to transfer the ownership to an architecture steering committee which encompasses a group of key decision makers in the company. The Chief Architect evangelizes and further develops it. In Infosys, the architecture team has its scope defined by the mandate given to it. The architecture team sometimes requires to open its doors to the senior business executives as well as the stakeholders throughout the enterprise to deal with issues across hierarchies and geographies.

Fig.: Sample Leadership Structure (Source: Infosys Ltd.)

Infosys has found the following practices for an effective leadership in its organization: * Define Architecture Steering committee involving all senior business and technology leaders to ensure senior leadership sponsorship, involvement of all business units and a process for arbitration. * Identify a Chief Architect who understands and identifies with business. * Management support depends on buy-in from the most powerful players as well as a base majority in each of the following three constituent groups: * Senior Line-of-Business (LOB) leaders * Middle management * Distributed Technical Staff and IT Power Users * These groups have different concerns and motivations that must be understood and addressed * Accept that there are groups with conflicting interests. Decide how to handle them as these are battles which should never be fought.

Organization:
The organization of EA defines roles & responsibilities of individuals and internal organizations involved in executing the architecture definition, implementation and governance processes. An established practice in Infosys structures the architecture team into: * a core EA team, responsible for architecture creation and governance * an extended EA team from the lines of business, bringing in specific needs and evangelizing the architecture in the developed groups * Vendor partners

Fig.: Sample EA reporting structure (Source: Infosys Ltd.)

Fig.: A sample RACI matrix for EA organization (Source: Infosys Ltd.)

Investment:
The EA team needs separate investment and funding models for its various activities as shown below:

Fig.: Various Funding Sources for EA processes (Source: Infosys Ltd.)
Depending on the type of project, different funding models are required. These models-in the spectrum from corporate tax to consulting fees-need to ensure sufficient funding of the enterprise wide strategic role of EA and should allow the involvement of EA team in all relevant projects as well as need to discourage extensive abuse of EA resources by development projects for project level tasks.
A combined funding approach is adopted in Infosys involving: * Central funding for the EA team required for enterprise wide architecture artifacts such as standards, processes and policies. * Remainder of activities (operating activities) funded through corporate tax and consulting fees.

Defining a Governance Model for Portals

Defining a governance model

Fig.: The three phased approach of Infosys

Fig.: A typical structure of portal governance Defining the roles & responsibilities: Fig.: A sample role definition Fig. a sample plan of meeting & forums defined for the teams along with the respective frequencies for each Defining the processes: Fig. A sample of the processes defined Fig.: A swim-lane process diagram useful to depict process flows along with the stakeholders involved Implementing the governance model: