Agile Governance: Keeping Sharp (and Awake)

Ross, Weill, et al, exclaim that governance is dynamic. And we can only nod our heads vigorously in agreement.  The Raytheon story tells of the fine-tuned governance model the organization had successfully put in place.  But as soon as they celebrated the accomplishment, the governance model no longer fits. When they shifted their growth strategy towards making new, and sometimes aggressive, important investments, the governance model no longer provided the support for making those decisions, i.e. arriving at decisions became an impeding challenge.

The Gartner discussions on Governance also point out that successful organizations with an EA practice must take a new approach towards EA governance. Organizations must begin by asking themselves five important questions which should guide the approach to EA governance and make assurance efforts more efficient. To achieve governance agility, it is important to know just how much governance is appropriate, what type is really needed, and what processes are in place.

The 5 Key Questions Towards Agile Governance

1. The first step in determining the appropriate scope of governance begins with the following set of questions:  What are the key decisions that support the business context and move the organization closer to meeting its objectives? Which decisions will enable the organization to meet its strategic goals?  These questions will help identify what areas need to be governed.

2. Why are these decisions important? To be competitive in the market, the business will depend on capabilities which enable the organization to execute the business strategies.  The rationale for which capabilities need to considered, and understanding why organizations need to make decisions on these is important, when agility of response to rapidly evolving demands of the market, is the only way to be in the game.  Wondering and scratching heads, while the competition understands why certain decisions matter, can leave some companies in the dust. As Gartner points out, environmental trends -- which comprise the aspects impacting the strategy, can be very useful in determining how important the strategy -- and strategy decisions, are to the business.  Understanding stakeholder viewpoints and the importance on viewpoint-related decisions will also facilitate governance agility. We were also reminded to articulate the importance of these decisions by linking EA governance to corporate and IT governance.  If the linkages for engagement have been established properly, the importance of these decisions will be better understood by business and IT.  If decision-making is properly understood by all key stakeholders, the road for architecture assurance and compliance becomes less bumpy.

3. Next, the critical question would be: Who are the best qualified individuals in the organization to make these decisions? Who does the governing?  It is not always IT, nor is it always only the business. It is the combination of both that provides the synergy that leads to competitive advantage. IT capabilities can be enablers for the development of business competencies and capabilities -- and are therefore enablers of business strategy, rather than a hindrance. Identifying the right people at the right level requires an understanding of how individuals process information and arrive at decisions.  If the organization knows why these decisions are important, it's easy to understand why they need to identify who should make those decisions.  As Gartner warns us, choosing individuals solely based on hierarchy in the organization is not always the best choice. To arrive at the best decisions in a timely agile way, the right people should be those that can synthesize the information from a keen understanding of IT and business implications. Chosen properly, these people ensure participation and buy-in,  from both the technical and non-technical sides of the organization.

4. The governance process needs to be made clear to the whole organization. How should these decisions be made? How is governance supposed to be implemented? The best processes for making decisions depend to a large extent on the organizational culture. Here, the governance style must be compatible with the culture.  Doing otherwise can lead to a highly contentious environment, can get bogged down towards inertia,  which can definitely grind slowly into grid-locks -- a state which is obviously remotely agile.

5. Governance should be adaptive and sensitive to the dynamics and challenges of the organization. When is it appropriate to make these decisions? When is governance applied? Timing is everything. The same decision could either be right or wrong depending on when it was made, and there are indeed scenarios when decisions could be made too early or too late. This is very true for decisions that need to synch with investment cycles in the organization, which perhaps will require an astute understanding of peak patterns for expenditures.  Decisions on architecture compliance should obviously be timely and synched with development stages. Governance should not be an impedance to the development schedules, and must be coordinated well with portfolio management, down to projects, in order to minimize overhead impact -- not only to schedules, but costs.

Governance Overkill brings Death to Agility.

It is possible that the organization goes overboard, adding layers of process for process sake, resulting in too much process which can stifle innovation and diminish the agility for governance.  Some organizations create so much process that the team gets bogged down in documentation and becomes distracted, losing responsiveness to the dynamics of business drivers.  Governance can be so encumbered, that the overkill can lead to "death by process", producing artifacts which no longer have actionable value, and long review processes which can truly miss the boat - so to speak, and leave members frustrated and demoralized.

When Governance itself is dead, this is what happens:

Governance Agility with an Effective Repository

A streamlined and integrated EA information repository can bring the balance between Governance and Business Agility. In today's highly dynamic business environments, there is a need to allow the business to be agile, while ensuring appropriate governance mechanisms are in place. The increasing need of business users for speed and agility also requires a higher degree of speed and agility in IT delivery that cannot be impeded by governance overkill.   Control and governance practice can both be implemented to a high degree, and still be streamlined without such overkill.  A highly integrated EA and IT project information system can promote that balance of governance with business agility, to be responsive and adaptive to what the business requires. Mechanisms of automation should be explored, and applied as much as possible, to achieve this agility. These can empower not only EA and IT practitioners, but also empower the business users, with more direct access to business-IT alignment information.

Governance Agility at the Project, Program, and Portfolio Levels.

Coming back to the earlier story of Raytheon, the need for governance is important and must be defined well to be effective -- particularly when companies grow, and even more so for those who have embraced Agile processes, in order to be responsive to the rapidly evolving challenges of the market. The article from CPrime argues that while small companies can likely get away with fairly informal governance, larger enterprises cannot function effectively without formal controls in place. From my experience with small and large-scale implementations, I strongly agree. It also makes sense that in the same way projects and initiatives benefit from being managed within a program and portfolio framework, the same way agility is achieved by aligning governance with that same framework.

Agile Governance at the Project Level.  Effective governance at the project level identifies and advocates for specific goals to be reached during each delivery iteration. It helps determine the core requirements that comprise the initial release of the project, and the criteria by which additional goals will be decided upon.

Agile Governance at the Program Level.  A program can be defined as “multiple related projects that are managed in a coordinated fashion.”  Since multiple projects may be closely interrelated, effective agile governance can often be achieved at the program level, where these multiple projects align with certain broader business objectives. At the program level, the more comprehensive strategic goals of the organization filter down to individual projects that produce tangible results or benefits. From this perspective, the program level can be the optimal placement for agile governance. Managers at the program level are in a position to understand and translate the overarching strategic goals of the organization to project managers, who may otherwise suffer from tunnel vision.

Agile Governance at the Portfolio Level.  A portfolio is a collection of programs or projects and other work, grouped together to facilitate effective management, in order to meet strategic business objectives. This level defines the broad strokes, and has the clearest view of the landscape to provide effective prioritization of all projects and initiatives. Managers working at the portfolio level are primarily concerned with organizational strategic goals, and are not concerned with details at the program or project level.  Their focus is on the general direction in which the company’s projects and programs are headed, and are primarily concerned with strategic budgets and time line. Effective Agile governance at the portfolio level allows for optimizations in terms of  time, money, and personnel. 

Conclusion.

An agile governance model can energize guidance and control for corporate processes -- and thankfully for our own sake, can also do the same for both the EA and IT practice. Good governance is a key success factor for EA to deliver real value to the organization.  The development of enterprise architecture is important, and architects can produce meaningful vision artifacts and roadmaps for transition intiatives. However, without the guidance and control for the adoption and execution of plans, the chances of success without governance is low. EA governance should work with IT governance to align with drivers set by governance at the corporate level.  Properly coordinated, and with a clear rationale for decision processes, these combined governance mechanisms can facilitate the required level of engagement, help enable for strategy execution, and keep the organization sharp and competitive -- in the context of new agile business environments. 

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