Chapter 7: Building the Infrastructure for a Successful ITAM Program – Resume
Source: PDF File.
Resume
The chapter explains how Jeremy L. Boerger’s methodology addresses the issues that lead to hardware and software cost overruns. It serves as a framework for organizing data, roles, and procedures, while also establishing the human and documentation infrastructure needed to sustain an IT asset management (ITAM) program.
It proposes building a team with analytical and persistent qualities, assigning clear roles, providing training through tools and professional communities, and governing the work through policies, standards, and procedures. The goal is to transform ITAM data and reports into repeatable, traceable practices aligned with the organization’s objectives.
These individual qualities enable analysis and research; roles distribute those capabilities; training and professional communities develop them; and policies, standards, and procedures make them repeatable. The relationship is one of dependency: without authority, measurement criteria, and change control, reports and lifecycle states cannot be sustained; without trained and accountable people, documentation cannot be put into practice.
Ultimately, the chapter connects organizational governance with the operational reliability of ITAM.
Main ideas
- The ITAM methodology and program depend on an organizational foundation of competent people, training, policies, and procedures.
- An Asset Manager combines persistence, logical reasoning, research skills, and curiosity about data discrepancies.
- The roles of Data Analyst, ITAM SPOC, and Team Lead/Manager distribute the program’s operations, advisory work, and governance.
- A SAM tool accelerates operational learning, but its implementation and data interpretation may require specialized external consulting.
- Professional communities, mentoring, and continuous training strengthen capabilities that are largely developed on the job.
- Policies, standards, and procedures connect the corporate vision with rules, measurement criteria, and executable activities.
- Procedure documentation should state its purpose, inputs, outputs, RACI, activities, links, and change control.
- Recurring processes for procurement, inventory, discovery, data integrity, recovery, and disposal support the asset lifecycle.
- Pragmatic ITAM is a methodology, not a standard.
- It guides the team toward success measured against declared standards.
- It does not replace external standards or frameworks such as ISO/IEC 19770, ITIL, or HITRUST.
- It enables practices to be adapted to the organizational context while maintaining explicit objectives and measurements.
Concepts
- COO, CIO, CTO, and CISO: These are executive roles whose distribution of authority should be made explicit to avoid friction. NIST characterizes the CIO as responsible for the acquisition and management of IT resources and recognizes CISO as Chief Information Security Officer. The specific responsibilities of the COO and CTO depend on each organization’s structure (source: NIST glossary).
- ISO/IEC 19770: ISO/IEC 19770-1, a withdrawn standard that establishes requirements for an IT asset management system and follows the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle. Therefore, it is an appropriate reference for measuring and improving an ITAM program, not merely a catalog of practices (source: ISO/IEC 19770-1).
- ITIL: ITIL is a best-practice framework for IT service management. In the text, it appears as a reference standard; it is useful to distinguish that ITIL provides guidance on practices and capabilities, whereas IT4IT is presented as a data-oriented reference architecture (source: The Open Group IT4IT FAQ).
- IAITAM: IAITAM provides training and certifications based on its best-practices library. In the chapter, it is used as a source of standards and professional development for ITAM (source: IAITAM FAQ).
- IT4IT: The highlighted text reads “IT41T”; based on context, it is interpreted as IT4IT. IT4IT is a reference architecture from The Open Group for managing the business of IT through value streams and an information model (source: The Open Group IT4IT).
- HITRUST: HITRUST CSF is a security and privacy control framework that harmonizes multiple standards and enables risk-based assessments (source: HITRUST CSF).
- Sarbanes-Oxley: The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 introduced reforms to strengthen corporate accountability, financial disclosure, and the fight against accounting fraud. Its relationship with ITAM primarily concerns controls and financial evidence, rather than technical asset management (source: SEC statutes and regulations).
- KISS principle: The chapter describes the concept “KISS”—“Keep It Simple and Succinct”—which refers to simple, concise procedures with clear steps for frequent events and a limited number of exceptions.
APA Sources
- Boerger, J. L. (n.d.). Rethinking Information Technology Asset Management, Chapter 7. Source provided by the user.
- S. Securities and Exchange Commission. (n.d.). Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. https://www.sec.gov/rules-regulations/statutes-regulations
- (n.d.). Cybersecurity risk management and information protection. https://hitrustalliance.net/
- The Open Group. (n.d.). IT4IT. https://www.opengroup.org/it4it
- The Open Group. (n.d.). IT4IT FAQ. https://www.opengroup.org/membership/forums/it4it-forum/it4it-faq
- National Institute of Standards and Technology. (2013). Glossary of key information security terms. https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=913810
- International Organization for Standardization. (2017). ISO/IEC 19770-1:2017. https://www.iso.org/standard/68531.html
- International Association of IT Asset Managers. (n.d.). FAQ. https://iaitam.org/faq/
