Activity 1.4: Identify and Engage Governance
The establishment of the vision, goals and objectives, purpose statement, and scope helps shape the governance required for this planning effort. It is critical that the analysis and plans that result from the planning effort have a defined audience with the role of reviewing and governing the decisions being made. This formalized identification of applicable governance reduces risks and provides for more clearly defined decision making authorities.Planners work with the sponsor to develop a governance framework that forecasts the appropriate level of governance. The governance framework must identify the key roles for the planning development and show the relationships to existing governance bodies that may have operational oversight related to the scope of planning. The governance framework must include not only internal governance groups but also external groups that must be engaged for more broadly grounded governance. In establishing the governance framework with representatives from all planning disciplines, the project is alerted to the required approvals well ahead of when they take place.
Planners and sponsor can use the governance framework to illustrate the relative accountability and authority for decision-making, ensure a consistent and well-defined approach for decision-making, provide a mechanism for adjudicating disagreements or differences in perspective, and provide a definition of roles and responsibilities to ensure performance metrics are met. While the roles and responsibilities of each group or individual are described in the governance framework, many existing governance bodies will likely have existing governing charters that establish overall authority, roles and responsibilities, and decision-making processes. The governance structure must align with existing governance processes including the management of the overall enterprise architecture, capital planning process, security and privacy management processes, human capital management process, quality assurance processes, and the systems development lifecycle processes to name a few.
The following visual illustrates the tasks within this activity.
Tasks
Determine applicability of existing governance to prioritized needs, purpose and scope
Most organizations have governance teams that cover a variety of planning and execution activities. In many instances, there are teams that govern investments, projects, architectures, and other group decision activities. As previously stated, it is imperative that the planning effort involves governance throughout the process so that incremental decisions are agreed upon and the end result is in alignment with the expectations of the governance teams.
In this task, planners review the existing governance structure and specifically look at the charters of the existing teams to determine which, if any, teams are aligned to the planning effort at hand. Planners must leverage the prioritized needs, purpose statement, and scope and find the governance team(s) with the proper alignment. It is certainly possible that none of the existing governance teams are appropriate or fully cover governance responsibilities for the planning effort at hand. In these instances, establishment of a new governance team is an appropriate course of action. The recommendations for governance team alignment must be presented to the sponsor.
Engage existing governance to determine willingness to perform oversight of planning
The sponsor is the appropriate person, in most cases, to engage directly with the chairs of the governance teams in an effort to confirm that the recommended teams are in fact appropriate for the planning effort at hand. The sponsor is seeking confirmation from the governance team chair that the governance team has appropriate charter authority and is willing to perform oversight throughout the planning process.
It is important to prepare the sponsor with a solid understanding of the planning process including the types of governance that will be required throughout the planning process. The sponsor must ensure that the governance team chair is fully aware of the scope and level of commitment that is being requested of the governance team.
Formally engage existing governance or initiate new governance to oversee planning
Through the previous tasks, either planners will have not been able to identify appropriate governance teams, or they will have found appropriate governance teams and those teams have either accepted or rejected the invitation to govern the planning at hand.
If the governance team has accepted the request to govern the planning then it is important to meet with the complete governance team, at their next meeting perhaps, and walk them through the planning approach as well as the vision, goals and objectives, purpose statement, and scope.
If the governance team has not accepted the request or no appropriate governance team has been identified, then planners must support the sponsor in formulating a new, perhaps temporary, governance team for the planning effort, including formulation of the processes and workings of that team. The formation of new governance for planning will depend on whether there is a temporary or ongoing need for this form of governance.
In some instances there is a recognized need for governance to oversee planning on a continuing basis. In these instances, a governance team must be formed and chartered with responsibilities that cover not only the planning at hand, but also to include other current and future planning efforts. In other instances it is appropriate to simply stand up a temporary governance team with responsibilities for the planning at hand.
In either instance, it is important to meet with the complete governance team, at their next (or first) meeting perhaps, and walk them through the planning approach as well as the vision, goals and objectives, purpose statement, and scope.
Leverage governance to gain approval of prioritized needs, vision, purpose statement and scope, and target performance metrics
Now that the governance team has been engaged or new governance has been initiated, it is a good idea to engage the team immediately in reviewing and approving the prioritized needs, vision, goals and objectives, purpose statement, scope, and target performance metrics.
If the governance team is new then planners must provide an environment where the governance team dynamics can form a bit prior to this approval process. If the governance team is new, or if it exists but has never performed such a review and approval, planners must help the governance team become familiar with the items under consideration, how these items set the stage for the larger planning process, and how these items will be used throughout the rest of the planning process.
Activity Outputs:
| Output | Core | FEA Layers |
|---|---|---|
| Governance Structure | Y | S |
Key to FEA Layers: S = Strategy, B = Business, D = Data, A = Application, I = Infrastructure, SP = Security