Models for IT Governance

My article in the May 2005 print edition of Law Technology News is now up.   It's essentially a recap of my coverage of the keynote address where I served as "blogger-in-residence" at the recent CIO/CTO Conference, co-sponsored by ALM and Harvard Business School Publishing.  

Succinct take-away:  The possible models for IT Governance are:

• Business monarchy (this is highly efficient but can lead to suboptimal IT architecture).

• IT monarchy (leads to superb IT architecture and procedures but may not align with business processes).

• Federal system (IT, practice groups, office heads, etc., all have input — far and away the least efficient and most likely to generate the worst overall decisions).

• Duopoly (business leaders suggest what they need, IT responds with what they can provide, and a genuine dialogue occurs: typically a smart choice).

• Feudal (partners get what they want).

• Anarchy.

In general, the federal model is the least effective, because it is the most time-consuming and bureaucratic. On the other hand, it's the most open in terms of input (democratic) and difficult to avoid in a law firm culture.  Duopoly is the optimal choice.