Navigating Change: The Governance Office's Role in Business Transformation

Among all the components of a business transformation strategy and plan, perhaps the least appreciated and the most misunderstood is the methodology of strategic governance.

At the very least, governance should contain the structures, processes, and mechanisms needed to steer the organization through significant changes to the business model and related operational and organizational systems. A Governance Office helps to align the organization and its related work efforts and investments.

The Governance Office

The Governance Office creates a methodology to manage its own transformation program, roadmap, and performance. It leverages aspects of systems and design thinking, as well as agile, lean, and other approaches. In each case, the overall methodology is a combination of industry methods and customized perspectives.

Typically, a variety of vendors and partners bring multiple lines of attack to the transformation initiative. The Governance Office needs to understand and coordinate these approaches with the program at large. Incongruent analysis, misunderstanding of the workforce strategy, and misaligned timelines are commonplace when this alignment fails to occur.

It's helpful for the Governance Office to identify a set of approved or acceptable methodologies to recommend to leaders and teams who might need help in approaching their specific initiative or program. Decision-making frameworks for process and policy design, change management, voice of the constituent assessment, or a methodology particularly suited for innovation or ideation, are all good examples.

Good governance provides a pervasive understanding of operational methodologies and underlying initiatives and their purpose in the business ecosystem. It anticipates that adjacent enterprises and methodologies will likely need guidance, harmonization, and/or socialization as a means of alignment, as well as sharing valuable insights and outcomes.

Additionally, the Governance Office should build authoritative assets to allocate across initiatives, including a charter and compliance, worker personas in the workforce of the future strategy, program cadences and timelines, approved change and communication strategies and their channels, and so on.

Governance runs a strategy that is equal parts operational execution and people readiness, with a constant focus on building the workplace and workforce of the future.

Here are some common components one could expect to find in a transformation-related Governance Program:

Operational Execution

Operational execution is a delicate balance of oversight and enablement for the governance office. While most transformation-related initiatives are executed by the corporate business functions, IT, and the BUs or departments, all have cross-organizational implications. To glue this model together, governance needs to direct useful guidance to accountable leaders, ensure proper cross-functional involvement and compliance, and maintain consistency towards the people and stakeholder agendas. For this to happen, the governance office is well served with capabilities in solutions/product management and with access to digital/organizational transformation expertise to understand, reason, and advise the business on the relationship of their pieces to the enterprise whole. Additionally, for governance to remove obstacles and accelerate momentum, high-functioning relationships with other leaders and direct access to executive sponsors, the CEO, and/or the Board are critical.

As described earlier, the transformation governance methodology must identify and oversee horizontal initiatives that bring building-block capabilities to the new organization and its operating model. Examples of these key initiatives include:

• Knowledge & Data Strategies
• Resource & Service Management
• End-to-end Service & Product Delivery
• Strategic Workforce Design & Worker Experience
• Customer Experience
• Culture and new ways of working

Related - with transformation relying on frontier technology to both lead and follow business transformation - key technology and architectural initiatives that have a one-to-many impact on transformation plans are prioritized and contextualized in terms of business requirements, and overseen via the governance process. Common examples include:

• Enterprise Architecture Strategies & Standards (including “big bet” platforms)
• Data Strategy & Architecture
• Content & Knowledge Architecture (e.g., taxonomies, assets, etc.)
• Generative AI & other AI/ML Management
• Modern Security Architecture (e.g., Zero Trust Architecture, MDM, devices, IoT)
• Identity and Access Management (e.g., RBAC)
• Analytics, Metrics, and Insights
• Productivity & Collaboration Platform Management
• Interoperability and Ecosystem Design Management

Lastly, effective governance hinges on clear accountability and informed decision-making, achievable through a systematic approach to measuring progress and outcomes. Given the diversity of stakeholders and varying work methodologies, a broadly applicable, deployable, and adaptable measurement system is essential.