05 March, 2008

Differences between IT Governance and Enterprise Architecture Governance

IT Governance is the responsibility of the board of directors and executive management of an IT department. It is an integral part of the enterprise governance and consists of the leadership and organizational structures and processes that ensure that the organization's IT sustains and extends the organization's strategies and objectives.

IT Governance ensures that
  • IT delivery expectations are fulfilled
  • IT resources deployment is continuously planned, targeted and optimized
  • IT performance is measurable
  • and that the risks are minimized

We may consider defining an IT Governance team which would care of various domains such as Project Portfolio Management, Security Management, Project Management, COBIT, SOX, Risk Management ,Service Management, ISO 9000, etc..

Enterprise Architecture Governance encompasses leadership, implementation and controlling of Business Architectures, IT Architectures (Information, Application, Technology architectures) and Solution Architectures including organizational structures (organizational units as well as processes and roles) to ensure that architecture sustains and extends the business strategy and objectives. When we implement an EA Governance, we may consider defining an Architecture Review Board which decides which IS is best suited for the needs of the enterprise, it decides when a change in the architecture is needed, and prioritizes initiatives. More detailed explanation on this other post.

To summarize Enterprise Architecture is one of the IT Governance pillars and Enterprise Architecture with its associated Governance is s subdomain.

8 comments:

Antonio Valle said...

Completely agree, Serge.

Anonymous said...

sir, can u briefly explain what is the difference or relation between IS Governance and IT Governance?

u can mail me at: srikanth_cse_542@yahoo.com

Anonymous said...

hello, your comment was very helpful for me, but can you explain what is the difference between SOA governance and service oriented enterprise Architecture?

Serge Thorn said...

There is no difference between IS and IT Governance...Information Systems or Information Technology has the same meaning.

Serge Thorn said...

Service Oriented Architecture is SOA, and SOA Governance are the rules and guidelines on how to manage your SOA implementation. If you would like to read some documention on SOA Governance, I'm recommending a new document from the Open Group: http://www.opengroup.org/bookstore/catalog/c093.htm
Regards

Anonymous said...

thanks for your comments,
i am studying about SOA governance frameworks and SOE (service oriented enterprise ) frameworks ,
but i was confused,
it seems that the all (or most) components and subjects of both are equal,
can we say that a SOA governance framework is same as a SOE framework for an enterprise?

Serge Thorn said...

I would say that SOA Governance is a component of your SOE framework.

Anonymous said...

It is rather interesting for me to read that blog. Thanx for it. I like such topics and anything connected to this matter. I definitely want to read more on that blog soon.