Information Technology Governance or IT Governance is a subset discipline of Corporate Governance focused on information technology (IT) systems and their performance and risk management. The rising interest in IT governance is partly due to compliance initiatives (e.g. Sarbanes-Oxley (USA) and Basel II (Europe), as well as the acknowledgment that IT projects can easily get out of control and profoundly affect the performance of an organization.

The development of a good IT Governance model is not a simple undertaking. At the core of IT Governance is the underlying principal that IT is a foundation on which a business is run and therefore needs to follow the same principals as any other corporate entity. Key components of an IT Governance strategy include:

• Controls around the approval of projects and spending
• Metrics to show that a measurable ROI is being achieved
• Implementation of SOPs and documentation around project design
• Verification of security and accountability
• Segregation of duties for key IT Staff
• The development of KPIs and of a Balanced Score Card to measure progress