ICT Governance Seminar, Canberra, 27 October 2006

The ANU's National Centre For Information Systems Research runs several good free seminars each year. The next one is on how to get board members to worry about ICT investment and is recommended:

Seminar Title: Building Better Boards: The IT Governance Value Chain
Speaker: Professor Michael Parent, Simon Fraser University, British Columbia, Canada
Time/Date: 3 – 4.30 pm, Friday, 27 October, 2006
Location: Theatre 1, Ground Floor, HW Arndt Bldg #25 (off Kingsley St) followed by refreshments in Faculty Suite, First Floor of Bldg #25.
Cost: No charge
RSVP: Margaret Craig, by 24 October, 2006 (02) 6125 0532 Margaret.Craig@anu.edu.au

Summary:
The U.S. Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) inexorably changed the composition, role, and responsibilities of Boards, ‘C’-level officers, and senior public-sector officials in organizations worldwide. While sound knowledge of these roles as they pertain to fiduciary responsibilities has emerged in the Finance and Accounting literatures, considerably less attention has been devoted to understanding the nature of, and concomitant duty-of-care towards information assets in the organization, or IT Governance (ITG).

Technology accounts for more than one-third of all capital spending – far and away the largest single such expenditure by organizations. Professor Parent argues that Board members and Officials in public-sector organizations are neglecting these critical investments. To address this gap, he presents a model developed using recent cases of Canadian and Australian organizations, the IT Governance Value Chain, that outlines specific areas of ITG risk, and the actions directors and senior functionaries can take to mitigate this risk.

Speaker details:
Michael Parent is currently a Visiting Professor at The University of Queensland Business School, where he is conducting research on the governance of information assets in organizations. He holds MBA and PhD degrees from Queen’s University (Kingston), Canada. An experienced executive educator, he has designed and delivered programs for a variety of organizations, including McCain Foods International, SASOL, Bosch Industries, Provident Healthcare, the Haisla Business Development Corporation, and government agencies in Canada and China. He is a faculty member with the Institute of Corporate Directors (Canada), an affiliated researcher with the CIBC Centre for Corporate Governance & Risk Management, and Associate Professor of Management Information Systems at Simon Fraser University (Vancouver), Canada.

Electronic Commerce Seminar Series
ANU SCHOOL OF ACCOUNTING & BUSINESS INFORMATION SYSTEMS
NATIONAL CENTRE FOR INFORMATION SYSTEMS RESEARCH

From the: Anu-ecommerce mailing list

Some relevant books:

• Board Governance
• ICT Governance