The governance process, as defined by the architecture steering committee and the ARB, is intended to affect the behavior of IT management on a day-to-day basis. The architecture steering committee does not set standards or dictate technical direction. Its role is to relay business strategy to the technologists of the company through the ARB. Occasionally, the committee will have to make decisions on conflicting priorities and ratify requests for new standards. However, its charter is to assure that major technical direction matches business direction in a timely and cost-effective manner.
The architecture steering committee might have to decide between projects that compete for scarce resources, or decide about major investment decisions like building or buying new software applications, or whether to outsource a significant IT function. Due to the nature of the decisions made by the architecture steering committee, it is composed of a few key IT and business...