Excellent Change Governance ensures that we are focusing on getting maximum value from any change initiatives we are undertaking and managing our people risk.
Governance generally answers four key questions:
The key benefits of establishing change governance are:
I find change governance is not something that we talk about a lot in change circles. I think firstly, you need to need to make sure your broader planning and approach are right, else you might govern the wrong things. Second, you need to make sure you have done all your base work around things like your change impact assessments and change planning etc.
If we assume then that work is underway and you are clear on the why, what and starting to get clear on the how of change, now turn your attention to governance.
I still experience when we consult with clients a typical scenario where there is project governance, and yes, a component of that is change, but elements are missing. Project governance can often be focused on things like scope, time and delivery. What’s often missing for me is discussing the people transition (where your change is up to and how that’s going) and the people readiness or change readiness.
When I am either leading a change or advising an organisation on change, particularly if it is a bigger change, I recommend establishing a change governance forum.
Often, I’m putting something in place that’s focused on change readiness and implementation readiness. If you get the right people in the room, these forums can create a sense of ownership in the business for the change.
So, if you’ve got the business owners, people that are adopting and accepting the change in those governance forums, then you’re getting a stronger sense of accountability around that change initiative. That’s also helpful if you have to make decisions around change, things like design or even items like how we’re delivering the change, when, what order, really thinking about implementation and change readiness.
The Change Sponsor is key in your change governance. Often they will be chairing the meeting, working with the change team to decide on the participants. We all know the data that good Change Sponsorship is CRITICAL to successful change implementation, so really, you cannot go past go without good executive sponsorship.
It totally depends on how you set them up, they might be more formal like Steering Committees, or they might be Implementation/Change Readiness focused, but some of the things that might be discussed are:
It sounds to be quite a dry topic, but I can speak confidently from years of experience that it can make a world of difference to your change and to ownership of change across the business.
Reach out to me if you want me to talk you through this in a bit more detail.