It's not uncommon for companies to be displeased with the way in which they make decisions about IT investment levels, IT priorities and the financial benefits of IT investments, writes Bob Lewis. IT governance is a messy business, and controlling it is a challenge.

"More often than not, the process (if you can dignify it with that name) is contentious, confusing, and surrounded by complaints that have all the subtlety and emotional maturity of 'Mom likes you best' expressions of victimhood," Lewis writes in a post at CIO magazine.

It isn't that the answers to these IT questions are hard to come up with, however. Lewis maintains that businesses shouldn't invest in IT; they should invest in "revenue enhancement, cost reduction and risk management." The difficulty is in convincing executives to consider the needs of the company as a whole rather than the needs of their own silos. The key to the problem is that IT governance must include technology leadership, and that falls to the CIO.

It's up to IT to recognize the opportunities and threats that new technologies present and make sure they are included in the business planning process, but that can be a thorny challenge. Not only do you have to see IT-driven threats, but you have to detect them when they're still manageable. In the same way, you have to recognize opportunities before your competitors do.

"Which is why you and everyone else in the IT organization [have] to understand how the business works and where it's headed; need insight into your suppliers, competitors and business partners, how they work and where they're headed; and have to stay aware of new industry developments," Lewis writes.

For more:
- see Bob Lewis's post at CIO

Related Articles:
Why IT leaders should never give up
Good IT leadership includes good management
The perils of too many priorities