[LINK] Australian Governance Standard knocks the SOX off US law

[Tom Worthington]

I wrote: Tue, 10 Oct 2006 08:44:58 +1000 (was: "ICT 
Governance  Seminar, Canberra, 27 October 2006"):

>... Building Better Boards: The IT Governance Value Chain ... 
>Professor Michael Parent, Simon Fraser University ...

As predicted this was an excellent seminar, once IT people like me 
get over the fact that it is a management/IS topic and is not 
intended to have technical content. Professor Parent's slides are now 
online and linked form my notes: 
<http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2006/10/ict-governance-seminar-canberra-27.html>

One notable point was that alongside Section 404 of the US SOX 
legislation, Michael listed the Australian Standard for Corporate 
Governance of ICT (AS8015) 
<http://www.ramin.com.au/itgovernance/as8015.html>. When I asked him 
about it he had nothing but positive things to say about the 
standard. Australia should go ahead and propose this for adoption 
internationally.

Professor Parent was arguing for board directors (and their public 
service equivalents) to have some familiarity with IT, in order to 
meet their governance obligations. He provided a "Director's 
Dashboard" with five sets of red/amber/green indicators on the risk 
status of an organisation. Apart from the mixed metaphor with poor 
affordance (it is traffic lights which are red/amber/green, not 
lights on a car dashboard), this was a good way to address the issues.

On the same theme Ralph Norris, Managing Director and CEO of the The 
Commonwealth Bank (and a former CIO), will be talking on 
"Technologist's Journey from Backroom to Boardroom" in Sydney, 6 
December 2006 
<http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2006/11/it-knowledge-on-company-boards.html>.



Tom Worthington FACS HLM tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd            ABN: 17 088 714 309
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617                http://www.tomw.net.au/
Director, ACS Communications Tech Board   http://www.acs.org.au/ctb/
Visiting Fellow, ANU      Blog: http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/atom.xml