IT Governance: Where the Invisible Man Meets the Incredible Hulk

IT Business Edge blogger Loraine Lawson posted an interesting piece last week on data governance.  The very compelling headline, "Data Governance: As Popular as Root Canal" takes a closer look at a recent survey of 100 companies conducted by the folks over at Initiate Systems.  Sidenote: you may recall that IBM acquired Initiate back in February for their data integrity software that targets healthcare and government agencies.

The Initiate survey discovered that only about five to eight companies of the 100 had data governance directives in place.

Now I get that people often equate IT governance with life's greatest pleasures such as root canals, paper cuts and smoke in your eyes.  However, I think that the bad rap that IT governance has -- okay, perhaps has earned -- is largely due to a misunderstanding about how and where to apply it.  

There was certainly a time when it was labor intensive and intrusive but just as every piece of the IT industry continues to evolve, so do governance capabilities.  With automated processes that streamline a lot of the review cycles and simply help create better code, its time to rethink how we think about governance as the necessary evil.

If the goal is to apply governance so that it actually is effective in making sure that policies and best practices are followed, the role of governance in helping achieve that goal should be in fostering adherence to those policies and not gumming up the existing processes and creating extra work.   

One way to think about IT governance is to perhaps view it as the fusion of the best traits of two of my more favorite fictional characters -- the Invisible Man in H.G. Wells's book of the same name and the Incredible Hulk.  Okay, I can almost see the eye rolls now but stay with me for another minute.

The Invisible Man was able to enter a room and only make his presence known when it was necessary or if there were obvious indicators such as wearing a hat or glasses.  The same can apply to governance -- it can be running in the background and only make its presence known when necessary.  

As for the Incredible Hulk character, well, Dr. Bruce Banner was a pretty mild mannered scientist unless something set him off and unleashed his Hulk alter ego. The angrier the Hulk got, the stronger he became.  Now think about this from an IT governance enforcement perspective.  

A company always has the choice of how much policy enforcement to apply and how many exceptions to waive.  For some companies, IT governance is an active part of the IT infrastructure meant to guide the development process -- a passive Bruce Banner type who's there for clarification.  For other companies, it's about enforcement at the most critical stages and halting software from moving further along in the development cycle if it doesn't follow all the established policies.  At these companies, you don't want to upset the Hulk that's potentially lurking inside the CIO.

If we could just get a better understanding of the role that governance can play in actually accelerating development cycles and reducing the amount of glitches that continue to run rampant through our networks, perhaps it wouldn't be equated with root canals.