Impotence and IT Sourcing Governance

This blog shows the similarity between the evolution in our understanding of human sexual performance and IT sourcing governance. Why another blog on IT sourcing governance? There are literally thousands of papers, books, blogs, presentations, etc on this topic. The answer is that we have not provided specific guidance for customers and service providers so that they can efficaciously design and deploy IT sourcing governance. Until we attain such a goal, we should treat a discourse on IT sourcing governance with the same reverence as neophytic treatments for impotence.

Before I begin discussing IT sourcing governance, an introduction into the source concept of governance is required.  Bottom line is that there currently exists a lack of specificity when it comes to the term ‘governance’ despite the term being around for 700 years.  Its definition simply means authority and control (www.dictionary.com).  When you add the function of IT to this generic definition you simply get, at best the same level, if not more ambiguity. Two of the most cited definitions for IT governance are;

The International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP) : 'the oversight and management of all aspects of the outsourcing relationship.' (Outsourcing Professional Body of Knowledge, Version 8.0 (revised Feb 2008, IAOP, p.157)

Weill and Ross (2004) : 'specifying the decision rights and accountability framework to encourage desirable behaviour in using IT.' IT Governance, Weill and Ross, 2004, p.8.

Weill and Ross (2004) identified that 'the complexity and difficulty of explaining IT governance is one of the most serious barriers to improvement.'

The current standard on corporate governance of IT, ISO/IEC 38500:2008 Corporate governance of information technology is a board level standard and does not contain sufficient detail to execute.

What is clear is that customers of IT sourcing and their dance partners, the service providers, simply deploy a bricolage when it comes to sourcing governance.  What has this got to do with impotence? Much more than first appears. 

Let us take the etymological journey of impotence or human sexual performance. I will begin with the epic voyage of Havelock Ellis from England to Australia in the late 19th century. At this time, there were only two words to describe problems with human sexual function. For males, the term was impotence and for females the term was frigidity.  These two words resulted in a proliferation of treatments. These treatments abounded and were painful, ineffective if not outright dangerous.  The same currently exists for IT sourcing governance. Our lack of clarity and specificity means that we have deployed a plethora of treatments for IT sourcing governance, not knowing how effective they are. All these treatments are deployed with honourable intentions, just like those of our human sexuality founding fathers. They all believed they were doing the right thing! These treatments exhibit another profound characteristic, namely; they are rooted in the predilection of the physician. If they were a medical doctor then a medical based treatment was advocated. If they were a psychoanalyst, then a cognitive treatment was advocated.  Current IT sourcing governance exhibits this same characteristic. If the sourcing resources report to the CFO, then the treatment will be finance centric. If they report to the operations team, it will invariably be technology availability centric, and if the board has true ownership it will be strategy focused.

When it comes to our understanding and treatment for human sexual performance, we have come a long way since the days of Havelock Ellis. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for IT sourcing governance. In terms of human sexuality, we now have more than fifty words which we use to describe the constellation of human sexual disorders and dysfunctions.  Together with having more words we now have the benefit of having more effective treatments (DSM-IV). Treatments which are a far cry from one-size-fits-all model back in 19^th century.  We must aspire to reach the same level of maturity in our understanding of IT sourcing governance.  Otherwise, our road to success will be windy.

Where are we today? We have made advances since the inaugural dissertations on IT sourcing governance in the late 1990’s. Funnily enough we can now articulate two types of IT governance; contractual and relational governance (Griffith and Myers, 2005). We clearly understand that we must invest in resources to manage the sourcing relationship for success. We do not, however, agree on the active agent, the capabilities of such resources or their quantity and frequency of administration. We also recognise that we must have the accountability and ownership of the IT sourcing governance processes. We have yet, however, to universally agree on what these processes are. Similar to the treatments for impotence, we have numerous treatments for these processes, which can be found in any sourcing texts, blog, service provider white paper, etc. We do know that we require methodological comprehensiveness for the success of IT sourcing governance. We also know that we need tools for effective IT sourcing governance. We do not, however, agree on this set of tools and their use.

More work is needed to reveal what is required for effective and sustained IT sourcing governance. In my article, ‘The Science of Sourcing Governance’, I provide several heuristics to help design and deploy effective IT sourcing governance.

For more information, contact Ernie Zibert at ernie.zibert@gmail.com

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