IT Governance in Public Administrations

For the last few decades IT has spread and grown. IT is no longer a minor factor, but a must have in all companies to maintain competitiveness and enhance growth. The subject concerned with the alignment of IT with business, to achieve maximum business value is called IT governance (ITG). The absence of transversal ITG is one of the main problems of the Portuguese Public Administration (PPA). This absence leads to a constant increase in the IT expenses over the years. To mitigate this problem, the Portuguese government created a strategic plan (PGETIC). However, due to the lack of an implementation method (among other factors), the savings are not meeting the objectives. To ease this problem I have grounded my work in the best ITG practices - COBIT 5. By relating these practices with the strategic plan, clear and thoroughly specified practices are provided to implement the generic measures (from PGETIC). Therefore, the goal is to apply a situational method to implement ITG in the PPA. A method that puts together COBIT 5 and PGETIC, considering the organization's current situation. To demonstrate and evaluate this proposal a field study in an organization of the PPA was performed.