Governance – a topic that likely strikes mild concern, or at best vague interest in the hearts and minds of most managers. Does it really matter if status reports are not submitted on time? Do those risks need to be formally logged? Can’t timesheets wait until the end of the month? My team hasn’t changed, why do you need a forecast?
It never fails to surprise us here at SQA Consulting how often the importance of governance functions is forgotten. When commencing with client engagement discovery, we find that even blue-chip organisations might only have a minimal governance team or no such support at all. Frequently where teams do exist, they are sometimes seen more as an administrative support function and are perhaps too junior or too understaffed to have much impact.
Managers from governance teams often do not have a seat at the senior leadership table and therefore there is limited understanding of what governance needs to deliver and how it underpins delivery and organisational processes. This results in poor compliance with governance processes from the wider team and irrelevant, or incomplete information being gathered. It is sometimes a downward spiral to governance appearing to be an irrelevant exercise in red tape.