Governance defines the rules about how your company is run and addresses questions such as:

   • What are the company’s rules and policies?

   • Are they clearly documented and understood?

   • How are they interpreted, communicated, monitored, prioritized and       changed?

   • What are the consequences for breaking those rules?

   • What are the executive’s decision rights at each layer of management?

   • Who is accountable and responsible for what tasks?

   • Up to what level can executives approve budgets and changes before       engaging others?

When properly designed and implemented, IT Governance provides a set of processes and best practices that align business goals and objectives with IT deliverables, while setting proper priorities. When fully implemented, IT governance supports a “firm but fair” culture that reduces friction, confusion and politics. Governance ensures day-to-day problem fixing; ongoing support, as well as large scale development projects, are aligned with business needs and strategic initiatives.

A Governance program includes:

   • Business portfolio and IT product/service alignment

   • Transparency of IT processes

   • Prioritization by the business across IT silos (architecture,       development, operations, network, project management)

   • Service Level Agreements (SLA’s) which are used to define levels of       service acceptable to the business users, and used as a basis for       service monitoring, including vendor management

   • Risk management, including compliance requirements

   • Change and Configuration management

   • Problem reporting and problem management

   • Ongoing communication of business goals and IT vision

Scorpion is an industry leader with a distinguished record in IT Governance design, implementation and oversight. Under Scorpion, IT Governance is focused on delivering short-term, measurable results and long-term, sustainable stability. Below is a partial list of achievements realized under a Scorpion Governance program:

   • A cross-department Migration Integrity and SDLC Governance Process.       This process was implemented, supported and scaled across 41       applications for various technologies in a consistent manner within 12       months

   • An IT process was supported and defended with auditors in order to       successfully pass SAS70 audits

   • Functional, Non Functional, Deployment and Audit Compliance Risks       mitigated to deliver 99.98% systems uptime

   • Automation efficiency projects saved over $1 million per year in       resource costs

   • The first enterprise Service Level Agreement for Configuration       Management as a separate service from development, was written and       implemented

The Client’s technical and management teams were educated about IT Governance and how it is enacted to ensure they could carry on IT Governance after Scorpion had completed the engagement. A vision was created that guided the team’s sense of duty, judgment, scope, charter, bylaws and the team’s daily management direction, motivation and oversight.