Welcome to the August 2006 Infonomics IT Governance Letter

Dear Reader,

That’s right – this is the August edition – arriving in your in-box overnight on September 4th.  It may be a touch late, but we still hope that you’ll find the points of view interesting and topical.

Would it be unreasonable to expect organisations to learn lessons from their own experience and the experience of others?  Amazingly, when it comes to IT, it seems that the expectation is unreasonable, and we continue to see organisations being damaged by avoidable failures at both project and operational levels.  Analysis of failures generally points to a fairly small set of basic underlying causes.  One would expect that with bodies of evidence in hand, the people who control and monitor IT activities would be able to identify signs of trouble and initiate corrective action well before trouble sets in.

For many though, the reality seems to be far different.  In general conversation with directors, executives and IT leaders, I get the impression that everybody agrees that IT failures are a serious issue, and that they also think that their own organisations are not at risk.

I wonder what the leaders at Australian Pharmaceutical Industries thoughts about risk in IT were as they embarked on a complex replacement of core accounting systems.  API found itself newsworthy in a most inauspicious way in mid-July, when it asked the ASX to suspend trading in its shares.  The situation that developed gave us the key article in this month’s IT Governance Letter, and another case study from which we hope organisations of all types can learn valuable lessons.

Some months ago, Pickfords Record Management, a long term client and friend of Infonomics, was acquired by Iron Mountain, the leading provider of records management and data protection services for organisations around the world.  Ian Hollow, a leading innovator in Australia’s records management industry was appointed Managing Director.  This month, we welcome Iron Mountain as a sponsor of The IT Governance Letter, with an article penned by Ian and looking at the very serious issues that can arise when records management disciplines go wrong.

And we welcome back Compuware in its bi-monthly sponsorship, with an article from its governance solutions lead Mark Green.

As always, we sincerely hope that you enjoy this edition and that you see fit to share it with your friends and colleagues.  If this copy was forwarded to you, we do hope that you will choose to subscribe.  It’s easy – just email your request to subscribe@infonomics.com.au.

Kind regards
Mark Toomey
4th September 2006
 

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