IT Governance at
The University Center for Information
Technology
INF5890
IT and Management
Deliverable nr. 3
Spring 2015
Frida Strøm Anthonisen
I declare that the answer in this deliverable is my own product. I have not copied text,
drawings, diagrams or other parts of someone else's work without crediting the source.
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Index
1. Introduction………………………………………………………………………..……..p. 3
2. Summary of the article and the group projects………………………..…………..p. 3
2.1. The article……………………………………………………………..………....p. 3
2.2. The group projects……………………………………………………….……..p. 4
2.3. About USIT (University Center for information)..........................................p. 4
3. Comparability across the the two group projects…………………………………p. 5
3.1. Similarities in the project works……………………………………...………..p. 5
3.2. Differences in the project works…………………………………...…………..p. 5
3.3. Summary of the discoveries…………………………………………………...p. 7
3.4 Comparability across the two group deliveries and the article…………...…p. 8
3.5. Summary of the discoveries……………………………………..…………….p. 8
4. Closing comments…………………………………………………………...………….p. 8
5. Sources…………………………………………………………………………..………..p. 9
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1. Introduction
Out of all the project cases and articles we could choose from, I chosed to look deeper
into two projects works and one article. The two project works are from the subject IT
and Management (INF5890) and the article is from literature. The project cases that is
from IT and Management, is the two different project cases about USIT. I think that it
will be very interesting to see how the two different groups solved the deliveries, when
they analyzed the same organization. The case from literature that I chosed to look
further into, is the article “Key Issues Of IT Organizations and Their leadership: The
2013 SIM IT Trends Study” by Leon Kappelmann, Jerry luftman, Ephraim McLean and
Vess Johnson, and “IT Governance” by Weil and Ross1, will also be mentioned.
The reason for the choices I made, by choosing the group deliveries is that it is
beneficial to compare an assignment about the same organization. And the article (“Key
Issues Of IT Organizations and Their Leadership: The 2013 SIM IT Trends Study”)
relates to these assignments, because on of the main tasks for the assignments, was
among others, to analyze USIT and see if they could have managed the IT decisions in
a better way. The article can illuminate if the organization USIT is managing the IT
decisions in a way that, according to the course literature is to be seen as “the right
way”. I will therefore use the article to see if USIT is “far from” or “close to” the
management approaches from the course literature.
2. Summary of the article and the group projects
2.1 The article
In this part, I will short explain the content of the article i chosed. I could have written a
long paper about it, but I will try to keep it short and precise. I find this article highly
relevant for the second part of the two group projects, “Key Issues Of IT Organizations
and Their Leadership: The SIM IT Trends Study” is presenting the major finding based
on responses from IT leaders in 484 organizations from USA. It also includes their top
IT management concerns and issues, the organization's largest or most significant IT
investments, IT budget and staffing trends. The article is also about CIO role and IT
organization characteristics, including practises regarding budgets, hiring, salaries etc.
The article also includes the SIM survey results in prior years. The IT leaders personally
most “worrisome” IT issues and investments are also mentioned. The five most
important areas of the article is:
1. IT management key issues and concerns,
2. Largest/most significant IT investments,
3. IT budget and staffing trends,
1
IT Governance, Peter Weil and Jeanne Ross, Harward business Riview Press, 2000
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4. CIO role characteristics (tenure, previous employment, reporting relationships)
and
5. IT organization characteristics (structure, performance measures, use of cloud
and shared services).
As mentioned, the article is highly relevant to the two project cases that I will present
below, in part 2.2.
2.2. The group projects
The group deliveries are about the same organization; USIT. The deliveries will
therefore be named “Analysis of IT governance at the University of Oslo” written by
group 2 and “IT Governance at The University Center for Information Technology”
written by group 5. I chose to not explain what the two group projects wrote about in a
summary, but instead explain what the organization the groups wrote about is, and what
it`s main tasks are. The group project was to analyze an organization, and to see how
it`s IT governance is managed etc. In the second part of the group projects, they where
going to analyze and see what the organization, USIT, could have done better regarding
IT management. making IT decisions. Central questions here is; what the US could
have done differently? Is there room for improvement? I will explain the similarities and
the differences I found when I analysed the group assignments in chapter 3. Further in
this delivery, I will discuss the group projects up to the article.
2.3. About USIT (University Center for information)
The organization (USIT) that the two groups wrote about was created in the 80s. Before
that, USIT was the University's central IT service.The organization is a strategic and
user-orientated Norwegian IT organization. USIT supports the University of Oslo ́s main
areas of commitment: research, education and applied knowledge. USIT is also a
national centre of competency and an advisory expert in cases relating to IT for the
higher education sector (USIT, 2011).
USIT provides services and resources in the form of software, computational resources,
storage services, access to data collections and advanced support for university
research. The services and solutions USIT provides contributes to “the development of
teaching and learning quality, students' digital literacy, availability of services and best
practice development in the education business. (...)” The services “simplify access to
information, knowledge and data collections that the University has at its disposal, and
supports development of the researchers' presentations of important findings. USIT
develops and provides tools for the retrieval of cultural and natural history research
data. In addition USIT is an important partner in the digitalization of museum
collections”. (USIT, 2015, What does USIT do?).
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3. Comparability across the the two group projects
In this part, I will compare the article and the two group project works, and point out the
similarities and the differences I found during the analyze. To do this, I will start by
comparing the to project works. In the next section in this chapter, I will compare the
discoveries I found by analyzing the project works, and look at how the article's contents
are in relation to them. Does the project work and the article have the same content, or
the same perspectives? These are central questions that I will try to answer in this
chapter.
3.1. Similarities in the project works
After reading and analyzing the two group projects, I saw that there were many
similarities. Both groups have an introduction. The introductions shows, among others,
how they were planning to answer the questions and the method of how the project
work is predisposed. I also saw that the two group projects had a section which explains
the method they used to gather information to do the project work. Another fundamental
similarity that i found, was that both groups explained what USIT is, its main tasks and
its relation to the higher education section. They both also explains how USIT is divided
into sub-units, and their function in the organization and they have an organization map.
Both group project works made a figure to show how the Governance Design
Framework at USIT, and the Governance Arrangements Matrix. The Governance
Arrangements Matrix has a different design, but I will come back to this in the next
chapter, chapter 3.2 Differences in the project works. Both of the project works also
explains USITs Operating Model, and came to the same result; USIT uses the
Coordination Operation Model.
3.2. Differences in the project works
The two deliveries have different perspectives and focus in the way that the group
projects are predisposed. Group 2 starts the project by explaining what the University of
Oslo is and the organization of IT function in UiO, unlike group 5. Group 5 starts by
explaining what USIT is, and the organizations function. Already here, we I can see an
important difference. Group 5 write about UiO, so that the reader know what it is, and
then explains how USIT relates to the University. Group 5 has a perspective that the
reader of the delivery want`s to start by reading about USIT, and only mentions it in a
relation to USIT.
The organizational map the two groups shows are also different. This is shown by
putting them together, in the figure below. The reason for the difference might be the
information gathering method, and a different perspective of the organization.
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Figure 1: The organizational maps of USIT from groupe 5 and groupe 2.
An important difference I found when I analyzed the project works, was that they had a
different understanding of the Arrangements Matrix. The differences i shown below. The
blue x represents group 2`s understanding of where the arrangements takes place, the
red x represents groupe 5`s understanding, and the black x shows that the groups
agree off where the arrangements takes place.
Decision
G
o
v
e
r
n
a
n
c
e
Busines
s
Monarc
hy
IT Principles
IT Architecture
IT Infrastructure
Strategies
Business
Application
Needs
IT Investments
Input
Decision
Input
Input
Decision
Input
Decision
Input
Decision
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
A IT
X
Monarc
r
Decision
X
X
hy
6
c
h
t
y
p
e
Feudal
X
Federal
Duopol
y
X
X
X
X
X
Anarch
y
Not
know
Figure 2: The Arrangements Matrix (Weil and Ross, 2004, p. 11 and 21): The red X= gruop 5, the blue
x=gruope 2, the black x= the same understanding of the groups.
3.3. Summary of the discoveries
As i discussed in the previous chapters, there are many similarities, but yet also some
differences. An important difference, is that Group 2 had a different understanding of
the Governance Arrangements Matrix than Group 5. The differences might be a result
of the data collection method. The groups might have gotten different information, or
they might have interpreted the information in a different way, so that the outcome of the
Arrangements Matrix became different. Another reason why the outcome of, the
organizational map and the Arrangements Matrix, among others, became different,
might be the group's perspective and understanding of the literature from the subject
(INF5890). USIT is a small and user-oriented organization, which can illuminate the
readings in the subjects literature, in that it does not take account for small
organizations like USIT. This can be a criticism of the chapter Weil and Ross, 2004, p.
11 and 21, when they are designing The Arrangements Matrix. This may affect how the
groups interpreted The Arrangements Matrix. A proposal to solve this problem is that
the book also could have had an example by also using a small organization.
It is also important to notice that the group projects had many similarities too. For
example, as mentioned in part 3.1., the groups came to the same result, when they
analyzed USIT`s Operating Model. They wrote that USIT used the Coordination
Operating Model. It is hard to explain why they came to the same result, but the reason
for this discovery, might be that the course literature about The Operating model is
precise, and easy to understand when the students are going to put theory up against
reality.
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3.4 Comparability across the two group deliveries and the article
One of the groups (group 5) used the article “Key Issues of IT Organizations and
Their Leadership: The 2013 SIM IT Trends Study” to see how USIT handles the top five
areas from the article. A problem for the groupe might have been that the article only
mentions larger, american organizations. They might have other concerns to handle,
than smaller, user orientated organizations like USIT. This may be a criticism of the
article, because it doesn't mention smaller organizations. The article could, for instance
mention in the introduction what type of organizations they are analyzing, so that the
reader knows that it mainly covers large organizations.
3.5. Summary of the discoveries
As mentioned in chapter 3.3., there is a problem that the literature, Weil and Ross,
2004, from the subject IT and Management (INF5890) doesn't mention smaller
organizations, like USIT for instant. This might be a problem if people are interpreting
this in different ways, for smaller organizations. This is also a problem from the article
“Key Issues of IT Organizations and Their Leadership: The 2013 SIM IT Trends Study”.
I saw that the groups mainly had the same understanding in the group projects. I think
that the differences might have been a result of a different perspective on the course
literature, different sources, or a different understanding of the information.
4. Closing comments
All in all, the the groups had more similarities than differences. A reason for the
differences in the group projects, as mentioned in section 3.5. might have been a result
of a different perspective on the course literature, different sources, or a different
understanding of the information. The course literature is good, but it should also maybe
focus more on smaller organizations too.
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Sources
● https://www.uio.no/studier/emner/matnat/ifi/INF5890/v15/pensumliste/readings/itmanagement-key-issues.pdf
● https://www.uio.no/studier/emner/matnat/ifi/INF5890/v15/projects/groupreports/group-2---usit-admin.pdf
● https://www.uio.no/studier/emner/matnat/ifi/INF5890/v15/projects/groupreports/group-5---usit.pdf
● http://www.usit.uio.no/om/
● “Key Issues Of IT Organizations and Their leadership: The 2013 SIM IT Trends
Study” by Leon Kappelmann, Jerry luftman, Ephraim McLean and Vess Johnson,
Univresity of Minnesota, 2013.
● “IT Governance”, Peter Weil and Jeanne W. Ross, Harward Business Review
Press, 2000.
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