Event Summary

Corporate Governance, Strategy Delivery and BIG

Following on from the session presented 12th April (Improving Strategy Delivery - you have to think BIG) David Dunning and Linde Grebe from the Good Governance Academy recorded a conversation to explore how Corporate Governance, Strategy Delivery and Business Integrated Governance fit together.

Agenda

Section 1:

Introduction - background on the series, and introduction to Business Integrated Governance. Integrating circles and spheres of governance working within an organisation.

Compliance Exercise? - we talked over Corporate Governance being about codes, guidance and principles - doing it for the record - and the need to change that! Connecting top level to operations - balance between direction and operation - to bake into the organisation cake.

Embedding Governance in the day to day - ISO 37000 has high level principled to run the organisation by - there are elements to cascade into the busienss - Value Generation, Strategy Focus, Accountability to name a few. Little hope of achieving purpose without accountability - whatever level of compliance applied.

Tone from the Top - Accountability = Look Forwards (not just back) - how to get the tone delegated for doing the right things the right way. But we have to look forwards to achieve, to project forecast. The Governance Framework has to help the future as well as report compliance in the past

Corporate Governance - Value Add - Not just looking backwards - governance is needed in strategic planning - making the right decisions. Listening to the right information and risks (opportunity / threat) so we deploy funds and people the right way. Use governance to achieve more strategic deliverables!

Section 2:

Linking Purpose to Vision, Strategy and Governance - corporate governance requires purpose (and all the factors under that) to be core to what happens - but how do the PowerPoint messages get out there? The cascade and recompilation needs to be managed!

Believable Line of Sight - is there a clear connection Purpose to Vision, Strategy to department plans / change portfolios and product portfolios - is the information traceable?

Section 3:

Governance of Information - strategy is a creative process driven by information. Do we understand where the PowerPoint has come from? How do I believe it? Have you made this up on a spreadsheet? Information Governance is key to strategy delivery!

Integration of REAL Information - valid information can be framed / and emphasised correctly - points of accountability are core and governance focuses on information and that it has mechanisms to assure the source.

Data Based Decisions - We make information out of data - and we have AI these days to help is with information - but - instead of piling information as high as a mountain and mining it - why don't we focus on what information we need to be accountable, to operate governance? Can we pull rather than push information? Collect less, achieve greater insight

Section 4:

Share rather than Send - can we move away from a scenario where we send  interpretation / snippets and share it?

Accountability, Governance and Prioritisation - to be accountable we need to be empowered with resources and funds. Prioritisation gives us these. But how do we prioritise work items where the benefits fall outside our domain? How does the Engineering manager decide between workloads for BAU, product development and strategic change? We need a similar view of priorities - and act on them. Can we see where resource deployment is deployed in line with priorities?

Section 5:

Agility and Collaborative Strategy - How to cope with opportunity and threat? How do we use corporate governance to redirect priorities or supress variance from what has been agreed? Think BIG at all organisational levels - strategy is dynamic - we must be able to respond!  And we have strategies at all levels - the challenge is aligning and spotting variance.

Organisation Structure, Flexibility and Governance Values - responsibilities are organised by line function to get things done - but in many cases, strategic change is cross business - we need to be able to prioritise across the organisation and apply governance values flexibly to help us make the right management calls when our function is not a direct beneficiary of strategic change.

Stakeholders - internal / external, legitimate or not. The cascade of strategic objectives needs to be mapped down to the person level. Stakeholders must have an input / consideration through the governance cake!

Top Management, Governance and Strategy - We must support our executives to adopt more strategic roles and capability when promoted beyond a job which may mostly only require operational skill. We cannot expect them to accept or understand compliance for the sake of it! Corporate Governance and BIG helps the journey to purpose!!

Wrap Up - BIG enables is to integrate corporate governance through the organisation to enable greater achievement of purpose!



Session Presenters

David Dunning

Director

Lindie Grebe

Good Governance Academy