Overthinking governance prevents innovation
- 09 March, 2011 09:59
- Comments 2
Sydney Opera House
Minimising overthinking of governance issues when deploying SharePoint is vital if CIOs are to achieve long term innovation, a SharePoint specialist has claimed.
Speaking at the 2011 Australian SharePoint conference in Sydney, Seven Sigma’s managing partner, Paul Culmsee, told the predominantly development-focussed audience that if they spend 99 per cent of their time talking about time, cost and scope and 1 per cent looking at the legacy a project will achieve, they will be doomed to repeat the legacy they are trying to escape.
“If you spend all your time talking about things from a rational manager’s point of view – it’s a failure,” he said.
“When you install SharePoint, you need to ask what legacy you’re going to leave, otherwise you’re doomed to repeat yourself.”
Using the project management behind the creation of the Opera House as an example, Culmsee said projects that create a positive legacy are remembered more than the bumps in the road during implementation.
"If you judge the Opera House through the first order project management goals of time, cost and scope, it's clearly a failed project, but the legacy is priceless and that's what people go there for," he said.
“...Governance is a means to an end – it’s not an end. You don’t need to over define it to understand it."
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Comments
Craig
I think Paul made some good points but this article.seems.to have omitted some other important areas. For instance Paul (and I) believe in "appropriate" governance, and not zero governance. What you do to govern a project differs depending on the complexity of the situation.
Mark Toomey
Governance of IT is the system by which the current and future use of IT is directed and controllled - as defined in the Australian and International Standard AS/ISO/IEC 38500. Good governance oversees the activities and practices of management and provides clear guidance for decision making.
Mr Culmsee appears to be referring to a common problem of IT and project management practices which tend to be excessively focused on inputs and fail to give proper attention to outcomes. Learn more by exploring AS/ISO/IEC 38500, a world leading Australian development now adopted by the international community.
Management practices become ineffective when there is a failure of governance and the situation Mr Culsee references demands more attention to governance, not less. Good governance does not create unnecessary overhead - it ensures that all policy settings and the level of control exactly match the desire for innovation and risk.
Never confuse governance and management. When confusion occurs, it is highly likely that there will be insufficient governance and the management practices will by poorly aligned to the organisation's need.
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