Using Lessons from the COVID-19 Crisis to Move from Traditional to Adaptive IT Governance

IT played a central role in ensuring corporate survival during the COVID-19 crisis, which accelerated changes in many areas, including IT governance. Specifically, tra-ditional formal IT governance was complemented by relational governance to ensure quick and flexible decision-making. Based on a study of how IT governance changed during the crisis in companies operating in regulated industries, we provide recom-mendations for incorporating successful elements from crisis-mode IT governance to create adaptive governance that enables faster and more flexible IT decision-making without jeopardizing compliance with regulations.1