Advanced IT Strategy and Governance Training Course

Course overview

Technology leaders are expected to defend investment decisions, govern risk, and show how platforms, data, sourcing, and delivery programmes contribute to business outcomes. Yet many IT strategies remain lists of projects without measurable value, clear decision rights, target architectures, or control mechanisms. This course addresses the practical work of turning enterprise priorities into an IT strategy that can be approved, funded, governed, and reviewed by executives.

Participants build an integrated approach to strategic alignment, portfolio prioritisation, operating-model design, enterprise architecture governance, service management, cyber and third-party risk oversight, and performance measurement. They apply COBIT 2019 governance objectives, ITIL 4 service value concepts, TOGAF architecture governance practices, and ISO/IEC 38500 principles to realistic organisational decisions. Skills gained include developing strategic themes, defining investment criteria, establishing governance forums and decision rights, designing KPI and KRIs, and producing a roadmap with dependencies, benefits, and controls.

The five-day programme combines instructor-led analysis with executive-level case work, facilitated governance simulations, and structured workshops. Participants work from a case organisation or, where appropriate, their own business context to create a usable IT Strategy and Governance Blueprint. The final deliverable includes a strategic scorecard, demand and portfolio prioritisation model, governance operating model, risk-and-assurance view, and phased implementation roadmap that can be refined with stakeholders after the course.

This advanced course is best suited to experienced IT managers, architects, service leaders, risk professionals, and transformation leads who already contribute to technology decisions and need to shape enterprise-wide direction rather than manage a single project or technical domain.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Formulate an IT strategic vision, strategic themes, and measurable business-outcome statements
• Apply COBIT 2019 governance objectives to define decision rights, accountability, and oversight forums
• Construct a portfolio prioritisation model using value, risk, cost, capacity, and strategic-alignment criteria
• Design a target IT operating model covering demand, delivery, service, architecture, and supplier accountabilities
• Develop an architecture governance process using TOGAF principles, review gates, and exception controls
• Create a balanced IT scorecard with KPIs, KRIs, benefit measures, thresholds, and reporting cadence
• Evaluate technology, cyber, data, resilience, and third-party risks through a governance and assurance lens
• Produce an IT Strategy and Governance Blueprint with a phased roadmap, dependencies, owners, and review mechanisms

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• IT Directors and Heads of IT — who must translate corporate priorities into governed investment and operating decisions
• CIOs and Deputy CIOs — who need an executive-ready method for steering enterprise technology value and risk
• Enterprise Architects — who must connect target architecture decisions to portfolio priorities and governance gates
• IT Portfolio and PMO Leaders — who need defensible criteria for sequencing initiatives, funding demand, and tracking benefits
• IT Governance, Risk and Compliance Managers — who design assurance mechanisms, control reporting, and escalation routes
• Digital Transformation and Service Management Leaders — who must align change programmes and service outcomes with strategic objectives

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have practical experience in an IT leadership, architecture, portfolio, service management, risk, or transformation role. They should understand the basic purpose of business cases, project portfolios, IT service delivery, risk registers, and organisational governance. Familiarity with at least one of COBIT, ITIL, TOGAF, or ISO/IEC 38500 is helpful but not mandatory; the course explains how these frameworks are applied together. No coding, systems administration, financial modelling software, or prior certification is required. Participants will benefit most if they can bring an anonymised strategic challenge, portfolio, or governance issue from their organisation.

Training methodology

Instructor-led sessions introduce the governance models and show how senior teams use them in planning and oversight decisions. Participants analyse a multi-business-unit case organisation, assess its current governance gaps, and work in groups to resolve investment, architecture, supplier, and risk scenarios. Workshops use templates for decision-rights mapping, portfolio scoring, KPI/KRI design, and roadmap development. Each participant receives structured feedback on their blueprint and completes an application plan identifying the first governance artefacts, stakeholders, and decisions to address on return to work.

Course outline

Day 1: Strategic alignment and IT governance foundations

• Business capability mapping and strategic-theme definition
• IT strategy hierarchy from enterprise objectives to technology outcomes
• COBIT 2019 governance system components and design factors
• ISO/IEC 38500 principles for governing bodies
• Decision-rights matrices using RAPID and RACI
• Governance forums, mandates, escalation paths, and meeting cadence
• Current-state governance maturity assessment and gap analysis

Workshop: Participants assess the case organisation's governance maturity and produce a decision-rights map for its technology investment and risk decisions.

Day 2: Value, demand, and investment portfolio governance

• Demand intake, qualification, and strategic-fit assessment
• Portfolio segmentation across run, grow, transform, and mandatory investment
• Weighted scoring models for value, risk, cost, capacity, and urgency
• Benefits mapping, benefit-owner assignment, and benefit-realisation reviews
• Financial governance for total cost of ownership and funding horizons
• Scenario planning for capacity constraints and investment trade-offs
• Portfolio review boards, tolerances, stop criteria, and exception decisions

Workshop: Participants build and defend a weighted portfolio prioritisation model and recommend which case initiatives should be fund, defer, reshape, or stop.

Day 3: Operating model, architecture, and service governance

• Target IT operating model layers and accountability boundaries
• ITIL 4 service value system and value-stream governance
• TOGAF architecture governance framework and architecture board design
• Architecture principles, standards catalogues, and technology lifecycle controls
• Architecture review gates, waiver processes, and technical debt decisions
• Product, platform, project, and service ownership models
• Sourcing governance, service integration, and supplier performance oversight

Workshop: Participants design a target operating model and architecture governance flow for a cloud modernisation programme, including review gates and accountable roles.

Day 4: Risk, assurance, and performance oversight

• Technology risk taxonomy covering cyber, data, resilience, and third parties
• Risk appetite statements, tolerance thresholds, and escalation triggers
• Control ownership, assurance mapping, and three-lines coordination
• KPI, KRI, and key control indicator selection
• Balanced IT scorecards for value, delivery, service, risk, and capability
• Board-level reporting narratives and dashboard design principles
• Management review cycles, corrective actions, and governance evidence

Workshop: Participants create an executive IT scorecard and risk dashboard for the case organisation, with thresholds, owners, and escalation actions.

Day 5: Integrated strategy blueprint and implementation roadmap

• Strategic roadmap construction using horizons, dependencies, and milestones
• Governance implementation sequencing and change impact assessment
• Stakeholder analysis for executives, business owners, delivery teams, and suppliers
• Communications plans for governance adoption and decision transparency
• Metrics baselining and quarterly strategy review mechanisms
• Common governance anti-patterns and intervention strategies
• Blueprint peer review and executive presentation techniques

Workshop: Participants assemble and present their IT Strategy and Governance Blueprint, receiving peer and instructor feedback on its roadmap, metrics, controls, and executive narrative.

Tools & standards covered

COBIT 2019, ITIL 4, TOGAF Standard, ISO/IEC 38500

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions