Information Systems Management

9 Auditing Information Systems

The Fundamentals

1. 1) The audit is a function of the organization’s governance model: it is the strong arm of governance.
2. 2) However, there is the audit of the information system and the audit by the information system: the audit of an information system is often an input into the other audits.
3. 3) The nature of the audit is complex: it enables better alignment while, at the same time, setting constraints on the organization.
4. 4) The audit is the linkage, internal or external, between alignment dynamics and information system governance.

9.1. What is an audit?

9.1.1. A need for measurement: alignment by audit

Alignment requires an objective, an outcome and a measurement. For this, a governance mechanism is necessary. To meet the economic and organizational realities of businesses, a governance policy must be defined.

The processes of alignment and governance must, however, be dynamic, while covering all the stakeholders of an organization and its network. Given these organizational challenges, a great many audit processes and repositories, both internal and external, have appeared. In this chapter, we propose an analysis of information system alignment and governance by audit. This approach tends to demonstrate the importance of existing frameworks and repositories for the management of an open, multi-stakeholder territory.

As previously mentioned, the strategic alignment of information systems involves: ensuring business department issues have ...