Managing technology effectively in large public organisations

Abstract

Technology is one of the most significant and important resources of large organisations. However, to realise the opportunities provided by technology, it must be managed well to ensure its benefits are timely and procured at reasonable cost. The executive team must be involved in the management of technology. They do not need to be technology experts but they do need to have some basic understanding of technology and the opportunities it provides. Further, they need to ensure that projects utilising technology are business driven not technology driven; understand the challenges and the risks and how these should be managed; and understand the externalities that might have an impact. This article is written from the perspective of the former chief executive of the Australian Bureau of Statistics. It identifies and discusses the principles that executive management in a large organisation should follow to ensure technology is managed well.

Keywords:

• information technology
• risk management
• enterprise architecture
• project management

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.