CTO flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

IT Governance Definition

The set of decision rights and accountability frameworks that encourage desirable behavior in the use of IT, specifying who decides, what they decide, and how decisions are monitored.

McFarlan Strategic Grid

Classifies applications by current and future strategic dependence on IT into strategic, turnaround, factory, and support quadrants, guiding differentiated investment and management attention.

COBIT EDM Domains

Evaluate, Direct, and Monitor are the governance domains of COBIT, separated from management domains covering alignment, building, delivery, and monitoring of IT services.

Net Present Value

The sum of discounted future cash flows minus initial investment using the hurdle discount rate; positive NPV indicates the project adds value.

TOGAF ADM Phases

Architecture Development Method phases A through H cover vision, business, information systems, technology, opportunities, migration planning, implementation governance, and change management, wrapped by requirements management.

Zachman Framework

An ontology classifying architecture artifacts by stakeholder perspective against interrogatives such as what, how, where, who, when, and why, ensuring complete architectural description.

Enterprise Service Bus

A middleware layer providing message routing, transformation, and protocol mediation between heterogeneous systems, reducing point-to-point integration sprawl and coupling.

Loose Coupling

A design principle minimizing dependencies between components so changes in one service require little or no modification to consumers, improving maintainability and independent deployment.

API Gateway

A front-door component handling authentication, rate limiting, request routing, protocol translation, and logging for backend APIs, centralizing cross-cutting concerns outside business logic.

Technical Debt

The implied cost of future rework caused by choosing an expedient design now instead of a better approach that would take longer; tracked and remediated deliberately.

Data Steward Role

The person responsible for day-to-day data quality execution, defining standards, resolving quality issues, and maintaining metadata under the accountable data owner.

Third Normal Form

A relational table design where every non-key attribute depends only on the primary key, eliminating transitive dependencies and reducing update anomalies.

CAP Theorem

A distributed data system facing a network partition must choose between consistency and availability; it cannot guarantee both simultaneously during partition.

CIA Triad

The core security model requiring confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information assets, each addressed by distinct preventive and detective controls.

Defense in Depth

Layering independent security controls across perimeter, network, host, application, and data so a single control failure does not compromise the whole environment.

Risk Calculation

Risk is quantified as likelihood multiplied by impact, then reduced through mitigation, transfer, avoidance, or acceptance, with residual risk documented and monitored.

Tuckman Team Stages

Forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning describe predictable team development phases, with conflict most likely during storming before norms stabilize.

RACI Matrix

A responsibility assignment mapping where each activity has one accountable owner, responsible performers, consulted stakeholders, and informed recipients, preventing diffusion of ownership.

Herzberg Two Factors

Hygiene factors such as pay and policy prevent dissatisfaction but do not motivate; motivators such as achievement, recognition, and growth drive engagement and performance.

Situational Leadership

A model matching leadership style (directing, coaching, supporting, delegating) to follower readiness and competence, adjusting style as capability and confidence grow.

Span of Control

The number of direct reports a manager oversees; wider spans suit standardized work while complex interdependent work requires narrower spans for adequate coaching.

Diffusion of Innovations

Rogers' model describing adoption across innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards, with the chasm separating early adopters from the majority.

Three Horizons Model

A portfolio framework allocating investment across core business today, adjacent growth in the near term, and transformational options for the long term.

Gartner Hype Cycle

A maturity curve tracing technologies through trigger, inflated expectations, disillusionment, enlightenment, and productivity plateau, informing timing of adoption decisions.

Disruptive Innovation

Christensen's concept where entrants start with simpler, cheaper offerings at the low end or new markets and improve until displacing established competitors.

Recovery Time Objective

The maximum acceptable duration of downtime for a system or process before business impact becomes unacceptable, driving recovery strategy and investment.

Recovery Point Objective

The maximum tolerable amount of data loss measured in time, determining backup frequency and replication design for a given system.

Business Impact Analysis

A structured assessment identifying critical business functions, their dependencies, and tolerable disruption thresholds such as RTO, RPO, and maximum tolerable downtime.

Preventive Versus Detective Control

Preventive controls stop an event before it occurs, such as access restrictions; detective controls identify events after they occur, such as log monitoring and reconciliation.

Total Cost of Ownership

The full lifecycle cost of an asset including acquisition, implementation, licensing, operations, support, training, and decommissioning, used to compare investment alternatives fairly.

Capital Versus Operating Expense

Capital expenditure is capitalized and depreciated over useful life, while operating expense is charged in the period incurred, affecting reported earnings and cash flow differently.

Service Level Agreement

A contract defining measurable service commitments such as uptime, response time, and remedies including service credits, plus measurement methods and exclusions.