The top two IT-related problems are operational incidents and staffing issues, according to a global survey commissioned by the IT Governance Institute (ITGI). A previous top priority, security has fallen to seventh on the list of the top eight IT priorities.  Compliance was reported to be the least important problem—likely due to the significant efforts that have been put into information security projects and compliance programs, such as those for Sarbanes-Oxley in the US.

The survey consisted of 695 interviews with CEO/CIO-level executives in 22 countries, and the full results can be found in the IT Governance Global Status Report 2006.The study assessed the C-suite’s IT governance priorities and actions executives have taken related to IT governance. It is a follow-up to ITGI’s 2003 report and tracks IT governance trends over the past two years.

The study found several improvements since 2003. For instance, IT is included more often on boards’ agendas—63 percent regularly or always include it, compared to 58 percent in 2003.

Even though 57 percent of respondents said IT is very important to the delivery of the corporate strategy, compared to 52 percent in 2003, the study found that CEOs are responsible for governance over IT in only 24 percent of the responding organizations.

"As in 2003, CEOs and business executives are still hesitant to discuss IT governance,” said Everett Johnson, CPA, international president of ITGI. “This finding is troubling because boards and CEOs are ultimately responsible for oversight over all major assets—including IT.”

Other findings include:

• IT is more critical to business than ever. For 87 percent of the participants, IT is quite to very important to the delivery of the corporate strategy and vision.
• For 63 percent of the respondents, IT is regularly or always on the board’s agenda (up from 58% in 2003).
• The IT department at more than half (56 percent) of the organizations surveyed understands and supports the business users’ needs.
• IT outsourcing is no longer seen as the most beneficial way to resolve IT problems—45 percent of US respondents believe it is ineffective.
• The number of companies that indicated they had no IT problems increased from 7 percent in 2003 to 21 percent in 2005.
• IT governance is not as easily implemented as respondents originally estimated.
• Only 9 percent of the responding organizations are not considering implementing any IT governance solutions—down from 17 percent in the 2003 survey.

The survey was conducted from July 2005 until October 2005.

One other interesting tidbit from this survey… a lot of non-IT clients often complain about IT being unresponsive and uncommunicative. Not surprising then are the results from the following question: “How regularly does your IT department inform the business about potential business opportunities enabled by new technologies?”

Never or sometimes was the response of 45% of the CEOs and CIOs. Only 55% said regularly or always. It would be interesting to repose the same question to marketing, human resource and communications managers… the finding would be far worse (I suspect). However, those same communications, marketing and human resource managers are just as guilty of failing to properly document, plan and communicate their needs. Instead, non-techie business people lean far too heavily on their IT families. IT is a corporate service, and not necessarily a driver of the business.

© 2006 Toby Ward - Prescient Digital Media

Nothing ruins a good intranet like intranet sprawl. Dozens or hundreds if not thousands of corporate intranet sites – all using different hardware, software, content, information architectures, etc. Confusing the users, wasting money, etc.

Just ask companies like IBM or Nortel who waste millions on maintaining thousands of intranet sites. The sprawl must be contained; the monster must be tamed.

Prescient Digital Media senior consultants Julian Mills and Tom Marciniak recently conducted a workshop on doing just that – taming the monster.

All organizations that disseminate information start with a dream: multiple websites integrating seamlessly into an intranet that minimizes the effort of managing content and maximizes stakeholder satisfaction. But for too many operations, the dream has become a nightmare, a Frankenstein’s monster of mismatched components that lurch onto monitors, terrifying audiences and causing managers’ sleepless nights.

Government organizations face unique challenges when setting out to tame the monster, starting with the focus necessary to organize the task. They can’t work with the obvious profit-drivers that enable private sector organizations to assess the damage being done when a monster enters their midst, or develop the return on investment (ROI) models that tell them the dream has been realized.

The ROI for a government intranet may not be derived from increased sales or profits, but it can be rapidly developed based on improving the efficiency of sharing and disseminating information, especially during an era in which political leaders promote government efficiency. After all, government departments exist to propagate information, so any initiative that demonstrably improves this core function will have an obvious impact on organizational goals.

Read the full article Taming the Monster: Creating an effective Government Intranet