CISA Governance and Management of IT Practice Question
Which TWO of the following are benefits of establishing an IT steering committee?
⚠ Common exam trap
CISA often tests the distinction between governance and management, and candidates may incorrectly assume that a steering committee directly improves operational efficiency or reduces overhead, when its primary benefits are strategic alignment and prioritization.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Enhanced prioritization of IT investments
Option B is correct because an IT steering committee's core purpose is governance: it evaluates competing IT initiatives against business value, risk, and resource capacity, thereby enhancing prioritization of IT investments so funding goes to the highest-value projects. Option C is correct because the committee is composed of senior business and IT leaders who jointly set direction, which produces better alignment between IT and business strategy and ensures IT delivers on organizational objectives. Option A is not a primary benefit of a steering committee, since operational efficiency of IT systems is achieved through operational management practices such as monitoring, tuning, and incident management rather than governance-level prioritization. Option D is incorrect because establishing a steering committee adds governance meetings and coordination effort, typically increasing rather than reducing management overhead. Option E is incorrect because steering committees provide strategic direction and oversight, not direct control over technical IT decisions, which remain with IT architects, engineers, and operational teams.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Improved operational efficiency of IT systems
Why it's wrong here
Operational efficiency of IT systems results from engineering, automation and monitoring improvements, not from governance oversight; a steering committee sets direction, prioritisation and risk alignment. It is tempting because committees do indirectly influence system performance through funding decisions, but that is not their stated benefit.
- ✓
Enhanced prioritization of IT investments
Why this is correct
An IT steering committee aligns IT spending with business strategy by ranking competing initiatives against agreed criteria, ensuring limited funds target the highest-value projects. This directly satisfies the stem's benefit of enhanced prioritisation of IT investments, since cross-functional oversight resolves competing departmental demands that isolated IT management cannot arbitrate.
- ✓
Better alignment between IT and business strategy
Why this is correct
An IT steering committee gives business leaders formal authority over IT priorities, so investment decisions reflect strategic objectives rather than technical convenience. This directly satisfies the stem's alignment benefit: cross-functional governance links technology roadmaps to business goals, ensuring initiatives are approved, sequenced and resourced against organisational strategy instead of departmental agendas.
- ✗
Reduction of management overhead
Why it's wrong here
A steering committee adds governance touchpoints — meetings, papers, escalation paths — so it increases, rather than reduces, management overhead. Overhead falls when decision rights are delegated to a single accountable owner; that is the scenario where this option would hold true.
- ✗
Direct control over technical IT decisions
Why it's wrong here
Steering committees set direction, prioritise investments and arbitrate between business units; they deliberately delegate technical design to IT, so they do not exercise direct control over technical decisions. That hands-on control belongs to architecture review boards or engineering leads, which is where this option would fit.
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JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official ISACA exam blueprint
This CISA practice question is part of Courseiva's free ISACA certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the CISA exam.