Governance is a common theme running through for many organizations. It is a foundation element that needs to be applied at many levels to different aspects of information, technology and overall IT management.
Overall IT governance specifies the decision-making authority and accountability to encourage desirable behaviors in the use of IT. IT governance provides a framework in which the decisions made about IT issues are aligned with the overall business strategy and culture of the enterprise. Governance is about decision making per se — not about how the actions resulting from decisions are executed. Governance is concerned with setting directions, establishing standards and principles, and prioritizing investments; management is concerned with execution.
Organizations must consider roles, rules, existing and evolving information architectures as well as key stakeholders. They should also consider how much information must be managed rigorously — and, in some cases, left unmanaged. The percentage of information that qualifies as valuable for compliance, business continuity, consumer-facing, or other reasons may well be only 35% of the total information presently residing in — or moving through — enterprise information architectures
Most people know what good information governance looks like and what it has to accomplish. They are also aware of the fact that most organizations lack coherent information governance strategies. The problem is that existing culture and organizational relationships are not conducive to the division of labor that information governance demands.
