Section 17.1. What are typical models for IT governance?

17.1. What are typical models for IT governance?

Traditionally, there have been two approaches to IT governance: centralized and decentralized. As its name implies, the centralized model calls for a central authoritythe IT department, that isto retain control over development budgets and the adoption of technical standards. To get new apps built, have old apps extended or modified, and procure new equipment and software, other business units within the organization must go to this central authority for approval and help.

The decentralized approach, which many corporations adopted as mainframe-based data processing gave way to client/server computing in the 1980s and 1990s, has shifted a certain amount of power over budgets and technical matters to business units and even to individual departments within those units. With less central oversight, these disparate groups of users can easily end up creating systems that over the long term do not work together particularly well. Semantic problems, such as differing definitions of "customer," for instance, can make it difficult for independently run systems to communicate and share information. In response to this, a small industry of application integration techniques, products, and companies has arisen.