IT Governance: The Safe Way to Effective and Efficient Governance

Abstract

Software Quality Management Systems should include all the activities, responsibilities, procedures, resources, measurements and measurement tools that are used to assure that all projects under development would satisfy the pre-agreed quality factors. One of the main issues of the selected quality management plan should be the specific methodology that would be followed for the measurement, analysis and interpretation of the results. This methodology should combine and correlate all factors that affect the final product quality as well should adapt to the specification and peculiarities of each software project under evaluation. In case this required management effort is supported by a dedicated software application there is a major confidence that the total required documentation would be successfully delivered, the co-operation among various stakeholders would be highly efficient and the additional requirements like auditing and certification would be effectively concluded. Various approaches have been suggested (e.g. CobiT, ITIL) for a holistic management of IT-Governance processes, while several tools for their support have been developed.. This paper analyzes all above issues and presents existing technologies for IT-Governance management, as well as operational requirements of a prototype QMS, developed by the Quali-Learn Lab of the Athens Technological Educational Institution (TEI) to be used by software development organizations