How Boards and Senior Managers Have Governed

Raymond C Young, Department of Accounting and Finance, Macquarie University

Table of Contents

Abstract
How Boards and Senior Managers have governed ICT projects to succeed (or fail)
Success from a governance perspective
How boards and top managers should govern projects
HB280 & AS8016
Initiate & Evaluate
Support
Direct & Monitor
Conclusion
References

Abstract

This chapter positions IT project governance in the context of corporate governance and IT governance. It has highlighted dysfunctional behaviour and neglect of the governance perspective in project management practice and argued that the traditional measure of success ‘on-time on-budget’ is inappropriate for IT project governance. It presents a holistic framework of IT projects in the context of an organisation and lists six key IT project governance questions that should be asked by a board (or other approving authority), top managers and executive project sponsors. The detailed framework and questions are being published by Standards Australia as HB280 and they incorporate and extend the best of the IT project governance prescriptions that currently exist.