Best Practices @ Athena
     
 
 
Best Practices @ Athena
 
 
IT Governance
 
 
IT and Business processes require Governance from day one. Information and business technologies, such as Information Assets, IT enablers, Enterprise Applications are enterprise assets that will stay with a company for years to come. These assets need to be produced with enterprise quality and adhere to a well-defined set of standards and policies in order to ensure ongoing operations, reduce integration costs and complexities, and limit liabilities and security exposure.
IT Governance Institute defines IT Governance as “the leadership and organisational structures and processes that ensure that the organisation’s IT sustains and extends the organisation’s strategies and objectives.”
 
  • IT Asset Management
  • IT Portfolio Management
  • IT Service Management
  • IT Infrastructure Optimisation
  • Project Management and Program Management in the Enterprise IT context (including software engineering where appropriate), and
 

Ensuring good governance depends on religiously performing the following activities, that Athena shall perform as part of this engagement

Design

  • Establish IT Governance steering committee that includes-Board of Directors, Key Business Stakeholders, Business Process Owners, Business Function Heads / Support Team Members, IT Managers, Project Managers and other stakeholders who would be directly impacted.
  • Draft a comprehensive IT Infrastructure roadmap which would address
 
 
  • Technology upgrades / Expansion Plans / Configuration Changes / Configuration Migration to name a few
  • Process Upgrades / Implementation of Best practices in IT Management like ITIL / ISO 20000 to name a few
  • Process performance - Best Practices Management, which would ensure adherence to industry best practices in terms of IT Services Management viz. ITIL
  • Process Maturity & Improvement plans
 
  • Design comprehensive IT Environment Management processes keeping in mind business, business owners & process owner’s requirements.
 

Auditing & Conformance
 
  • Policies should not be left to documentation. Policies should be an active part of the operations of companies. Following the policy definition stage, following activities are envisaged to maintain high-standards of services
 

Management: Track, Review & Improve

Tracking adherence to processes is a vital task to be carried out as part of good governance.
Once policies are defined and conformance processes are in place, decision makers need to govern the implementation/adherence to process.
Following activities are envisaged to ensure adherence to processes

  • Policies Status — Create awareness on policies / processes implemented
  • Reuse - Encouraging utilization of reusable components in daily operations
  • Manage collaboration between different practices / processes
  • Facilitate cross-standard Integration / Interoperability
  • Track process effectiveness through a system of capturing information on
 
 
  • Services reused effectively, and demography of service consumers
  • Conformance Status
  • Impact Analysis — what happens to business operations if we change our current processes?
  • Interdependencies — how will operations be impacted by changes made to Services? Which critical processes will be affected or even cease to operate?
  • Exception Management — can we grant an exception to a defined process for a certain project? What will be the impact of an exception?
 
Evolution / Maturity
 
Maturity in processes happens when processes are adhered to religiously. Process effectiveness is said to be complete when the learning from review exercise are ploughed back in to the system to be used for improvement of the existing processes & procedures which has a considerable positive impact on business operations.

IT Governance is an ongoing cyclical process which enables the key business enabler viz. IT platform to yield qualitative and quantitative business benefits with support from all stakeholders.
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