Adapting IT Governance Frameworks using Domain Specific Requirements Methods: Examples from Small & Medium Enterprises and Emergency Management

IT Governance methods and frameworks have been applied in most large for-profit organizations since these enterprises realize the benefits of IT Governance for their business. However, former research and our own surveys show that frameworks such as ITIL and COBIT are not very well established in Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) as well as in Emergency Management (EM) organizations. Thus, we investigated what kind of barriers can be the cause for the low adoption rate. These results built the basis for our Domain Specific Engineering (DSE) approach. The research is based on the data of two research projects. The first project investigated the utilization of ITSM methods in European SMEs, and the second has researched different emergency management organizations. This paper defines similarities and differences of the two domain specific solutions, describes the engineering approach, and gives guidelines for further research in other domains.