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Chaos vs Control: Secrets of Good IT Governance

Ask 10 people what “IT Governance” means and you’re going to get 11 answers. Sometimes we picture a single, large, and ...

Patrick Tucker
Posted by Patrick Tucker
Chaos vs Control: Secrets of Good IT Governance
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In today's fast-paced business landscape, staying ahead of the competition requires efficient and effective solutions. According to Microsoft’s Work Trend Index, nearly 70% of employee report that they don’t have sufficient time in the day to focus on “work”, with more time being spent Communicating than Creating.

Microsoft 365 Copilot is designed, with Microsoft’s cloud trust platform at its core, to allow for employees to both be more productive, reduce the time spent searching for information, performing mundane tasks, and other low-value activities.

Ask 10 people what “IT Governance” means and you’re going to get 11 answers. Sometimes we picture a single, large, and dusty document that contains all the rules we should follow. Many think of security when governance is mentioned. Most simply glaze over or quickly change the subject.

In the world of collaboration tools, governance is the gatekeeper of good adoption.

 

Gartner defines IT governance as “processes that ensure the effective and efficient use of IT in enabling an organization to achieve its goals.” Put another way, governance is really the gatekeeper between chaos and control.

 

Chaos vs Control

On one hand, chaos is everyone using whatever tool they want to get their work done without proper guidance, training, or knowledge of the way their work affects others in the organization.

On the other hand, control is having systems locked and stripped down by IT to the point that no one can create what they need without making a service request, providing justification, and waiting for a technical tool to catch up with an immediate need.

If governance does not exist, then tools may not be adopted or used properly or too many Teams, Sites, Groups, etc. may be created and abandoned. Side-effects could include sprawl, duplication, and not knowing where to find what you need.

If governance is too tightly enforced, then solid adoption may be lost as it may become too hard to get what you need when you need it, or the tools may be so locked down that their value is lost.

 

A good governance plan should provide three things for you:

1. Definitions regarding how technical tools and processes align with your business needs and goals.

2. Technical guardrails for how a system or software is configured to meet business goals and serve the needs of admins, owners, champions, and users.

3. Guidance for optimum, continued usage of the tool over time that is frequently revisited and revised as necessary.

Ideally, planning for these elements occurs before anyone starts actively adopting and using the tools being governed. At KiZAN, good governance is at the core of collaboration and change management. Starting strong and reinforcing along the way is the key to good adoption whether it's Power Platform, Teams, a SharePoint intranet, or just sharing files from OneDrive.

Create value by ensuring governance and change management best practices are implemented well in your organization.

 

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KiZAN is a Microsoft National Solutions Provider with numerous gold and silver Microsoft competencies, including gold data analytics. Our primary offices are located in Louisville, KY, and Cincinnati, OH, with additional sales offices located in Tennessee, Indiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Texas.