IT Governance and the
ERP Process
Fred Siff
Vice-President & Chief Information Officer,
Professor of Information Systems
University of Cincinnati
© F.H. Siff, 2005
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Assembling Packets from the
Campus Ether
Listen
… and hear
Develop coherence
Garbled messages
lead to failed
executive leadership
Five Ideas
The New Kid on the Block
 What is Governance and Why Is It
Essential?
 Who Cares About IT in the Business?
 Governance Beyond ERP Selection
 Some Keys to Effective Governance

The New Kid in the Executive Suite
“Getting IT Right,” Harvard Business Review,
Feld & Stoddard, February 2004
“Of all the members of the Executive
Committee, the CIO is the least understood
…many companies just kick the kid out of
the house.”
The New Kid in the Executive Suite
 Manage
to a mature business model,
not to the next crisis
Do (only?) what your organization can do
well
 Sound resource management is essential
 A cost center with a P&L statement

 A mature
business model must include
governance
What is Governance?

Who makes decisions, why, and how



Academic organizational culture largely defined
by issues of governance
IT is new to the process
IT is too important to leave to IT folks



You need their voice
Just IT: myopic and ill-Informed
Just IT: nobody else cares
What is Governance  Why
 Successful
business transformation
starts with business needs and priorities
 involves the business process owners in
significant ways

 An
antidote for anarchy?
What is Governance  Why
Practical: prioritize the deployment of limited
resources
 Reflect community
 Not for “buy-in”
 Involvement of informed users leads to better
ideas, products & decisions
…But fit the larger organizational culture

What is Governance  Why
The business agenda defines issues
 IT-Business Alignment
 There are no IT projects…only business
projects
 The Next Great Thing in IT is not in IT, it is
in the business
All of this applies to the ERP Process
Who Cares About IT in the Business?

Everyone.
I’m IT. You’re IT.
A Higher Ed institution is not Wal-Mart

Credibility is the key to organizational
involvement
...Deliver Deliver Deliver

Committees recommend
…Officers and administrators make decisions
Governance and the ERP Process


Make the business case, not the IT case
Build the system for a client



Not the power users, but all users
IT may be the architect/construction engineer,
but the client is the owner/occupant.
Identify & empower an appropriate sponsor

to whom IT is secondary, even subservient – a
business partner
Governance and the ERP Process
What are the key decisions?
 Need, sponsors, resources
 Specs and selection
 Blueprint/design and realization
Not hardly…
Governance beyond ERP Selection &
Build
Each system has a life cycle, and the aggregation of
subsystem life cycles…
is what gives the CIO grey hairs and worse.
Easier (more dramatic, identifiable resources, etc.)
to build new (system/bldg) than to rehab old.
Ongoing enhancement/refinement is a real issue
must have a coherent governance structure
must have an identifiable maintenance (& support) budget,
much like a maintenance budget for a building.
must project this out for at least several years, to develop a
complete picture
Governance beyond ERP Selection
At UC, we have a Core Systems Matrix,
Allocated funds, core systems by year, projected to
10 years
Managed by the Institutional Management
Committee, within the overall governance
structure
Some Keys to Effective Governance
Vision = Execution
Deliver Deliver Deliver
Some Keys to Effective Governance
 Involve
the right people matched to
the right issues
 Executive
involvement critical
Simplified UC IT Governance
Structure (February 2004)
Academic
Technology
Planning
Committee
Infrastructure
Technology
Planning
Committee
Institutional
Management
Planning
Committee
--ECAR Case Study 4, 2004, “Using an IT Governance Structure to Achieve Alignment at the University of Cincinnati.”
Some Keys to Effective Governance

Involve the right people matched to the
right issues
Executive involvement critical
 Thought leaders
 Strong recommendations -- empower

Some Keys to Effective Governance
 Involve

the community
“Using an IT Governance Structure to
Achieve Alignment at the University of
Cincinnati, ” ECAR Case Study 4, 2004
Conclusion
The IT Governance
The
‘ERP decision’
structure
is one
(which really isn’t)
is
mechanism
for rejust one issue to be
assembling the
treated within the IT
packets
and
Governance
enabling
the
structure.
executive function of
IT to be conducted.