Establishing ITSM Governance

[gregmorrison]

Establishing ITSM governance is important for both early journey and mature customers. A great place to start with ITSM governance is to create an ITSM Architecture Review Board (ITSM-ARB) that ensures alignment between your ITSM program and the organization’s strategic objectives.

ITSM–ARB membership typically includes standing representation from Enterprise Architecture, IT Security, Service Management, Operations Management, Business Management and Application Development or Engineering. The ITSM-ARB membership is guided by a specific charter and typically has authority over ITSM architectural decisions, customizations, policy, roadmaps, and industry best practice alignment.

Customers that are actively transitioning “back to baseline” will benefit by leveraging the ITSM-ARB to protect all their “back to baseline” efforts against future drift. While early journey customers benefit by proactively managing drift from the point of their “go live.”

The steps for creating an ITSM-ARB are as follows;

1. Secure executive sponsorship
2. Match authority and accountability
3. Assign an ITSM-ARB Chairperson
4. Assign ITSM-ARB membership seats
5. Define Scope
6. Document and publish charter
7. Create ITSM-ARB awareness campaign

In this digital transformation era, keeping technical debt low and achieving fast time to value is essential.   A disciplined ITSM governance model can help your organization stay in position to consume new capabilities quicker and deliver them to your business users faster. It also serves as a powerful decision-making body for your ITSM program. Attached is a sample ITSM-ARB charter template for those of you that are ready to get started.