QUT

ISACA Executive Briefing on IT Governance

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Today I am attending the John Thorp Executive Lunch on IT Governance (specifically, he is discussing value governance, investment management and portfolio management).  This is happening at the Convention Centre, and then afterwards I am attending a round table discussion for the IT Governance Institute on the topic of IT Governance and where it needs to go to.

The discussion is complementary to my current role lecturing in IT Governance at QUT and the PhD I am doing in IT Audit (which relates directly to COBIT, and whether organisations need to have different approaches to IT Audit).  My personal view is that not enough organisations are working with COBIT enough, and are treating their IT systems as black boxes.  I don’t believe that that’s appropriate for large, IT-dependent businesses.  And I think that is becoming an increasingly validated point of view. 

I get a guernsey to the roundtable discussion as a ‘leading local professional’ in the area of IT Governance.  Modesty prevents me from affirming that description, but I will fight for their right to say it. 

It promises to be interesting; I’ll post my thoughts on how it travelled after it’s happened. 

Dow Jones vs Gutnick – and the law’s an ass

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Blogging from the back of the taxi, I’m just reminded to blog about the intriguing case I alerted to last night. I am lecturing at QUT for about seven weeks starting in about September on IT Governance. The first half is being presented by Bill Singleton, a senior associate with Allens Arthur Robertson, and he is basically presenting the law to them as it relates to ensuring the good governance of IT.

I attended last night to be introduced to the class, and I stayed for the lecture. One of the interesting cases was to me the Dow Jones v Gutnick case. From what I understood, Dow Jones implied in their newsletter that Gutnick was involved in insider trading. This did not sit well with Mr Gutnick who, even though the newsletter was written in New York and uploaded to the net to a server in New York, sued them in Victoria for defamation.

My first reaction was that the suit would fail for lack of jurisdiction – Victoria is not New York after all.

Apparently Gutnick won on the basis that the defamation occurs where the download took place – Victoria. And the kicker is that, because of the bilateral agreements with the US, Gutnick then had an enforceable court order that he could pursue in the States.

When I mentioned this to my lawyer wife (I’m certainly no lawyer) her reaction was ‘So? That makes sense, otherwise you’d forum shop.’

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My view is that it’s rather bad – you write something, put it on the net, and any jurisdiction where there is a bilateral agreement – or where you want to do business – could result in an enforceable court order.

I mean, what if you innocently break the law in another jurisdiction? China, for example? Admittedly this was a defamation case, but even so it scares and annoys me a little.

I suspect there may be implications for corporate bloggers there.

I may misunderstand, after all I was in a lecture late at night. However to me it seems a classic case of, once again, the law getting in the way of progress.

Doing my PhD

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Well for a long time I’ve been fascinated by business – did my Commerce degree at UQ in 1991 – I tortured myself a fair bit by deciding to do the Honours course.  Which was nothing like I thought it would be, and was certainly the hardest year of my life (so far) work-wise. 

Graduating in 1991 was not a good time.  Today, you graduate, you get paid $40,000 minimum, and the accounting firms fall over themselves to have you work for them for 2 years before you do the London thing.  In 1991, it was quite the other way around. So I didn’t work for an accounting firm.  Or a bank.  Who, in their wisdom, had decided the world actually really didn’t need accountants.  They were protecting their profits, but probably didn’t do too much for the profession. 

I worked in private schools for 5 years before realising that I probably didn’t want to stay in the same role for another fifteen years (advice I actually received – I was ‘too young’ to be promoted any more 🙂 – try that on today!).  So I went looking somewhere where being 27 was not considered a career choice!

I did my Masters in Information Systems in 1996 (finishing in 2000), again at UQ.  I became a CPA in 1997.  That opened up the door to consulting in business systems with both Horwath and then BDO Kendalls when Horwath merged into BDO Kendalls locally.  I joined the ITM CoE in 1998, and became its chair in 2002 after Tony Hayes moved on. 

I mostly loved BDO Kendalls as a firm – of course, we had our moments, but I was there for ten years so something must have been OK.  It’s a great accounting firm, with very talented and hardworking people.  Unfortunately due to family commitments and the need for long hours, I couldn’t stay there forever so it was best I leave and strike out on my own.  That has mostly worked well, although again that’s had its moments.  It’s reaffirmed my understanding of the need for cashflow in a small business in its growth phase, particularly during that all-important startup period!

Where’s this going?

Well, as part of my new-found life, which still very much involves consulting, but not trying to juggle family responsibilities and a national firm, I’ve done a little bit of lecturing from time to time (mostly QUT).  Which has been interesting and has lead to other things.  When I left, though, the plan was to work as a part-time lecturer as a sort of base job. 

I’ve since discovered that, in reality, to do that you mostly need to either have a PhD or be doing one.  I also found out the pay-rates for academics – even in IS, academics are paid less than the tealady in a commercial firm.  When a web-designer with four years experience commands a $70K package, and an associate lecturer gets $54K, there’s an economic imperative at work.

Fortunately I’m not entirely motivated by money – I like to do new things, interesting things, relevant things. Searching out mobile phone plans for clients is not necessarily my cup of tea (not one of my banner-moments in the past!).  Im a tad more ‘big-picture’ than that.  So I approached UQ about doing my PhD, and they just happen to have a scholarship going for a PhD student to review the impact of IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) on IT audit methodologies (see here, at the top of Page 54).  It’s almost exactly what I’m interested in, involves working with the auditors-general around the country, and it’s important (that’s why it’s one of those rare things, a PhD with funding – not a lot of funding really, for what is needed, but funding nonetheless). 

Peter tells me he’s after someone ‘mature’ to do the work – so maybe I’ve shaken off those baby-faced looks from when I was too young be promoted :).  Had to happen eventually I guess.

Personally it suits me to part-time consult and work on this topic.  It’s not quite exactly what I’m interested in, but half the work of a PhD is coming up with a topic, and here it is laid out for me on a platter, with funding and research subjects on the side.  So – I’ve said I’m up for doing it

So – I’m told an office is involved, and that I’ll have to be at UQ a fair amount of the time, but that is fairly flexible and it’s really about outcomes. The picture below is of the building at UQ where I’ll be spending most of my time.  I’ll have to buy myself some suspenders and jeans now that I’m working in academia.  There is a coffee shop and it’s a wonderful location (parking is kind of poor but we’ll deal with that and how bad could it possibly be (gak! famous last words!).

For any clients reading this, please note that I’ll still be available for consulting work – for most clients, pretty much on the same basis as before.  You won’t notice the difference, I promise, and in the meantime I get to work with some great people on a big-picture topic area of interest.  In fact, it’s a topic that’s just crying out for consulting and linking with the business community.

Guess that’s why it’s a linkage grant then, huh.

Something in the ether…

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Hmmm. The year has been deliberately slow from my point of view to now (but nowhere near moribund – I’ve enjoyed ‘dadding’ it up) but in the past two weeks:

But my ‘networking’ part of my world seems to be paying off as in the last week or two I’ve picked up work with a very good client, been offered a lecturing role at QUT, asked to present at 2 conferences, written a national article for CFO Software Guide (Stitch the wonder cat is now a star), and requested to write another article on social networking for ITB in addition to the one I’m already doing.

And I’m sure there’s stuff I’m missing.

La vie est belle.

Professor Wim Van Grembergen and IT Governance

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The professor spoke today at the Gardens Theatre at Queensland University of Technology (great facility by the way) on the topic of IT governance. He focussed on the actual mechanisms for ensuring that IT and business are in alignment.

He focusses on structures, processes, and relational mechanisms.

He noted that relational mechanisms are often missed by consultants putting in a new IT Governance framework.

Structures and processes are fairly straightforward, but relational mechanisms are a little different. Relational mechanisms are mechanisms that ensure that the relationships that underpin the other two tools are effective. Examples include co-location of business and IT, aligned incentive programs, cross-functional business/IT training and job rotation.

The presentation was very interesting, and linked nicely to COBIT. He also noted balanced scorecard to measure corporate contribution, user orientation, operational excellence, and future orientation. A nice rule of thumb for operational measurement presented is that 33% of time should be spent on maintaining existing systems, 33% should be spent on enhancing existing systems, and 33% should be spent on building new systems.

Sherrena Buckby also presented on IT Governance. Sherrena is a PhD candidate at QUT and is writing her thesis on IT Governance. The topic of her presentation is ‘Why IT Governance is important for boards?’. Sherrena is doing significant research on IT governance on what are the tools that the board could use to cover off on iT Governance issues. Her presentaion was very interesting and holds some promise for a practical tool that may assist boards in addressing IT Governance.

A very worthwhile session today.