Future scenarios of information technology governance

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 National Research Institute for Science Policy

2 A faculty member of the National Research Institute for Science Policy

3 Assistant Professor of the Futures Studies Group, National Research Institute for Science Policy (NRISP), Ministry Of Science, Research & Technology, Iran, Tehran.

Abstract

Purpose: The governance of ICT at the national level can be realized and formed in different ways. Identifying uncertainties is time-consuming and requires a lot of dynamic expertise. Policymaking in today's fast-paced world requires tools that can perform the fastest evaluations at the lowest cost. These tools are also significant in interdisciplinary fields. For this reason, policy-making in interdisciplinary issues is more challenging, and tools, such as scenario writing, are less usable due to these challenges.
Methodology: One of the fast, cheap, and efficient methods in policy evaluation is the use of scenario analysis based on the in-casting method, In this research, it is possible to achieve quick, comprehensive, and cheap evaluations through the combination of two foresight methods, i.e., in-casting scenario planning and morphological analysis.
Finding: To identify ICT governance scenarios, first reference scenarios in both fields: 1) governance and 2) information technology were selected, then these scenarios were intersected in a table. to be In this way, the primary scenarios of information technology governance include the combination of all possible states (from the combination of each ICT scenario with each governance scenario). In this research, by using the in-casting method, while identifying four plausible ICT and four governance scenarios, 16 possible states were obtained through the intersection of these scenarios. Then, using the field anomaly relaxation method (FAR) technique, which is used in morphological analysis, the states that have a low probability of realization or are implausible are removed from among the possible states.
In this way, ICT governance scenarios are compiled in the form of 6 scenarios regarding the future situation after removing incompatible, unlikely, or unbelievable cases.
Conclusion: In this research, combining the two methods of morphological analysis and in-casting scenario planning makes it possible to develop a scenario or evaluate policies in an interdisciplinary field.

Keywords

Main Subjects