The IT governance structure works to improve the information technology environment at Washington University in St. Louis by developing a coordinated vision of IT that serves the university’s mission and strategic plan.

Process

Our approach to managing IT governance are based in the processes and mechanisms that centralize, prioritize and coordinate the scheduling of IT related projects and policy requests across the entire university. The effectiveness of approach is dependent on those who participate. Our ability to quickly respond to IT issues requires a clear ownership of responsibility and decision-making authority within the Strategic Investment structure. It is a highly collaborative process requiring interdisciplinary participation. The framework is a cross-functional team consisting of representatives from administration, schools and departments across the university and IT leaders. This structure includes the following:

  • IT Executive Committee
  • IT Investment Committee
  • Domain committees are created to represent functional and organizational areas. The domain committees are as follows.
    • Administration
    • Clinical
    • Information Security & Privacy
    • Research
    • Student Administration
    • Teaching & Learning
    • IT Operations
IT Governance Domain Structure

Approach

The processes and structures specify how to make technology decisions, implement and manage technology changes to ensure the effective and efficient use of IT in enabling the University to achieve its goals.

Our IT governance approach will:

  • Focus on making the right IT investment decisions for the university. This will be based on:
    • University strategies
    • University priorities
    • University financial imperatives
    • University constraints
  • Establish multi-year domain strategies leveraged for decision making and prioritizing
  • Create an annual portfolio informed by and aligned with university strategies and priorities
  • Reduce the number of committees and time needed to develop, review, approve and execute the annual portfolio
  • Have clear accountabilities and responsibilities for each committee
  • Work in conjunction with university finance to align university cadence for capital and operating planning and budgeting
  • Incorporate out of cycle requests as part of the overall Strategic Investment