The purpose of the information technology governance process countywide program is to develop and promote standards, policies, guidelines and methodologies for privacy, security, project management, application development, wireless, messaging, remote access, outside contractors, and disaster recovery. The following definitions provide the distinction between policies, standards, methods and guidelines:

Policy: Set of countywide organizational rules and practices that regulate how an organization manages, protects and uses its information system assets and data. These are required and must be complied with. Any exceptions to these must be documented, reviewed and approved. Policies are reviewed periodically and revised based on business operation changes.

Standard: Rules indicating how and what kind of software, hardware, databases, and business processes must be implemented, used and maintained to meet policy objectives. Standards are required and must be complied with. Any exceptions to these must be documented, reviewed and approved. Standards are based in part on technology and as technology changes, standards may need to be updated.

Method: A means or manner of procedure that indicates a regular and systematic way of accomplishing a business process or procedure. Methods will be updated as business processes change.

Guideline: Recommended actions and/or industry best practices that should be used to guide King County practices by users, IT staff and others. Guidelines are not compulsory. Guidelines are based largely on the technologies used therefore guidelines may change frequently as technology changes.

Policy, Standard, Method, & Guideline Overview

IT Governance approved countywide IT policies, standards, methods and guidelines

Methods:

Guidelines:

Contact information:

Principal Technology Strategist: Zlata Kauzlaric, zlata.kauzlaric@kingcounty.gov