IT Governance at the City of Naperville, Illinois

Abstract

This case study details the process that the City of Naperville, IL has developed to govern its information technology project selection process. IT governance can be de?ned as “a structure of relationships and processes to direct and control the enterprise in order to achieve the enterprise’s goals by adding value while balancing risk versus return over IT and its processes.” While the de?nition sounds ominous, the reality is that IT needs to connect the needs of the business to process improvements and projects that can enhance operations, create ef?ciencies, lower costs, and solve problems. The chapter entails the description of the way that business needs and IT projects were connected in the past, why that was a problem for the city and IT, and what was done to try and to correct the problem. The case study includes an overview of a toolkit used by the city as well as a discussion of challenges and the current status of each piece of the toolkit. The toolkit includes:1. Strategic technology planning2. Project management3. Capacity analysis 4. Budget/CIP review teams 5. Budget process improvements including project scope and scoresheet 6. Information technology project evaluation team 7. Balanced scorecard