Getting IT governance right

In recent years, there have been a few remarkable IT project failures in corporate organisations and government departments across Australia.

The sagas of the failed implementation of a payroll system at Queensland Health and integrated cargo system at Australian Customs are two that come to mind.

In 2005, the move to production of the Imports module of Australian Customs’ re-engineering program was described as a monumental and catastrophic failure in corporate governance of IT.

Read: Top 10 IT disasters.

Despite these examples, organisations are still under-investing in IT governance. In fact, only 7 per cent of respondents to an IT governance survey conducted by CIO, Deakin University, and Monash University said they allocated 10 per cent or more of their annual turnover to IT governance.

What do organisations need to do to get IT governance right?

Tim Thurman, CIO at the Australian Securities Exchange, and Brian Parker, CIO at Cuscal share their views on why IT governance is so important in the videos below.

quot;I’ve been part of projects that have failed and the key reason was there was not the right priority [on IT governance] at the executive level and at the management level.quot; Australian Securities Exchange CIO Tim Thurman.

quot;Everything we do is about an assessment of risk as it applies to technology.quot; Brian Parker, CIO at Cuscal.