The Software Architect Elevator

Chapter 32. Governance Through Inception

I Am from Headquarters, I Am Here to Help You

Corporate governance circa 1984

Corporate IT tends to have its own vocabulary. A top contender for the most frequently used phrase must be to align, which translates vaguely into the activity of holding a meeting with no particular objective beyond mulling over a topic and coming to some sort of agreement short of an official approval. Large IT organizations tend to get slowed down (Chapter 30) by doing this a lot. After alignment, governance likely comes in second.

Living in Perfect Harmony

Governance generally describes the act of harmonizing and standardizing things across the organization by means of rules, guidelines, and standards. IT harmonization done well increases purchasing power through economies of scale, reduces downtime thanks to less operational complexity, and boosts IT security by eliminating unnecessary diversity.

While pursuing harmonization is a rather worthwhile goal, governance can also do harm; for example, by converging on a lowest common denominator, which in the end doesn’t meet the business’s need. Also, many enterprises standardize on an all-encompassing solution that ends up being too expensive for many use cases. Lastly, if the wrong things are standardized, it can stifle creativity.

Note

Harmonization can reduce cost and complexity, increase uptime, and strengthen ...