Most executives don’t need more technical language, they need precise definitions they can use to challenge spend, understand risk, and make decisions they can defend in the boardroom.

 

This glossary covers the core terms I use when helping CEOs, CFOs, and COOs gain visibility into their technology function. Each definition is written in business language so you can see what matters, ignore what doesn’t, and make the right call without getting pulled into jargon.

​

IT Governance

IT governance is how decisions about technology are made, controlled, and monitored. It covers who has authority over spend, risk, priorities, and standards, and how those decisions are reported back to business leadership. When governance is working, executives can see how IT supports strategy, where it is exposed, and who is accountable.

​

IT Spend Visibility

IT spend visibility is a clear, finance-ready view of where technology dollars go and what they support. It connects line items, vendors, projects, and teams to business capabilities and outcomes. Without this, leaders see a budget, not a value model, and cannot challenge or defend the numbers with confidence.

​

ROI Clarity

ROI clarity is the ability to express technology investments in defensible financial terms. It links spend to measurable outcomes such as revenue, margin, risk reduction, or efficiency, in a way that stands up in a boardroom conversation. When ROI clarity is missing, IT becomes a cost argument instead of a business decision.

​

IT Financial Management

IT financial management is the discipline of planning, structuring, and governing technology costs so they can be managed like any other major category of spend. It includes budgeting, forecasting, cost allocation, and performance tracking for services and capabilities, not just line items. Done well, it gives Finance and IT a common language for decisions.

​

Technology Business Management (TBM)

Technology Business Management, or TBM, is a framework for organizing IT costs into business-focused categories. Instead of raw accounts and GL codes, spending is grouped into services, towers, and value streams that executives recognize. TBM makes IT financials easier to explain, challenge, and realign around strategy.

​

FinOps

FinOps is a collaboration model that brings Finance, IT, and Operations together to control cloud and infrastructure spend. It focuses on shared accountability for cost, performance, and usage, rather than leaving cloud bills to IT alone. Effective FinOps turns variable, opaque cloud costs into managed, predictable investments.

​

Cost-to-Serve Modeling

Cost-to-serve modeling calculates what it actually costs to deliver a specific technology service or capability. It combines infrastructure, licenses, labor, support, and risk into a single view tied to that service. This allows leaders to compare options, challenge vendor proposals, and decide where to cut, where to invest, and where to redeploy.

​

Executive IT Advisory

Executive IT advisory is independent guidance for CEOs, CFOs, and COOs on technology decisions, governance, risk, and leadership performance. It focuses on clarity at the decision point, not on selling tools or implementation work. The goal is to give business leaders a clean view of options, tradeoffs, and consequences before they commit capital or reputation.

​

If your IT organization uses these terms but cannot explain them in financial language, that is a signal. Clear definitions lead to clear decisions, and unclear decisions create waste, risk, and avoidable spend. If you want a direct review of how these terms apply inside your environment, I can walk you through the gaps, the exposures, and the opportunities that usually sit below the surface.

​

​