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.
