In the ever-changing world of modern business, effective governance and steering committees are essential for ensuring the success and sustainability of the company and the projects it implements.
Governance provides the overarching framework for the organization—all the compliance practices, policies, and processes that guide an organization. Steering committees, on the other hand, offer strategic direction, oversight, and application of the governance framework within specific projects. Together, they create a cohesive structure that aligns projects with organizational goals, facilitates decision-making, and ensures accountability.
In this blog, we explore the roles and benefits of governance and steering committees and how they can be implemented to encourage data-driven decision-making.
What Is Governance?
Within the context of an organization, governance generally refers to the framework of rules, practices, policies, and processes that guide and direct an organization. Governance is usually determined by compliance rules, laws within particular regions, and specific company-wide policies and practices. It also includes how an organization adheres to these aspects. It sets guidelines for the relationships and communication among stakeholders, the board of directors, management, and other key parties.
An effective governance framework also provides:
- Strategic direction for everyone within the organization. It establishes the vision, mission, and strategic goals.
- Company and employee accountability. It sets the parameters that individuals, leadership, and teams are held to for their performance and actions.
- Risk management and mitigation processes, practices, and policies that are clearly outlined and include how the organization will identify, assess, and manage risks. The organization takes these actions to minimize potential risk impact on the organization.
- Performance-monitoring practices and guidelines. It clarifies how individuals and teams throughout the company will track progress and performance against objectives and how they will make necessary adjustments.
Effective governance helps set the stage. It provides the outline an organization uses to ensure that they operate efficiently, ethically, and in alignment with set goals. It also provides the backbone and structure for decision-making and accountability, which is crucial for long-term success.
What Is a Steering Committee?
A steering committee is generally an advisory group that takes the organization’s governance guidelines and provides guidance and oversight for their implementation within program and project-based work.
Because steering committees play such a crucial role in the success of a program or project, it is helpful to understand why they are necessary. Steering committees:
- Provide strategic direction to ensure that the project aligns with the organization’s overall goals and governance practices.
- Facilitate key decision-making processes, including helping the team resolve issues and make choices that affect overall progress.
- Create a culture of accountability within teams by communicating the governance requirements around performance, reporting, and communication.
- Identify and manage risks, ensuring that the organization proactively addresses any problems, real or potential.
- Bridge project teams and stakeholders, ensuring that communication is clear, relevant, and aligned with governance practices and policies.
Some of the key members of a steering committee are:
- Senior leaders
- Subject matter experts
- Project managers
- Project teams
- Key stakeholders who have a vested interest in the project’s success
Steering committees provide essential guidance for navigating complex projects and achieving successful outcomes while adhering to governance requirements. Therefore, steering committees are most effective when their members have the appropriate level of influence and authority to drive decisions to move the effort forward.
Keeping Steering Committee Members Actively Engaged
Regardless of how well they are defined, members must be actively engaged for steering committees to be effective. Project managers and teams can drive this engagement in a variety of ways.
1. Foster Active Meeting Participation
Ensure members stay engaged and recognize the value in each meeting by holding regular meetings with structured agendas. Help ensure informed discussions by sharing any reading materials in advance. During meetings, encourage members to actively participate in decision-making by asking direct questions and facilitating the discussion rather than just providing updates. Doing so will help members find continued value in attending meetings.
2. Enhance Communication and Transparency
Treat steering committee meetings as you would any other project meeting. Use meeting minutes, decision logs, and action items to maintain accountability. Implement clear communication channels such as dashboards, reports, or other project management tools for real-time updates, and regularly share progress reports. A risk log can be a great way to track concerns that arise. It can create transparency about the risk itself and establish expectations for how and when the risk will be resolved.
3. Ensure Strategic Alignment
While steering committees generally align with specific efforts, members should understand broader organizational objectives. The goal should always be to ensure that the current project initiatives align with organizational objectives while adhering to established parameters. Within each meeting, use business objectives as an anchor to ensure the committee discussions and decisions align with these broader priorities. Doing so will also help ensure consistency in decision-making across different projects, functions, or business units.
4. Encourage Continuous Improvement
As with any project team, it is vital to perform periodic performance reviews to assess effectiveness and to encourage continuous improvement. Gather frequent feedback on engagement from committee members and stakeholders to ensure they understand the value of their ongoing participation. When appropriate, reinforce roles and expectations to ensure members stay engaged and contribute to key decisions that keep the project moving forward.
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An Example of Steering Committees in Action
Data governance, as set by the organization, is a strategic framework that comprises policies, procedures, and controls designed to ensure data accuracy, security, and proper utilization across the company.
An effective data governance steering committee is rooted in the collaboration of multiple parties, including executives, IT leaders, data stewards, compliance officers, and business stakeholders. An organization might implement this type of steering committee if it needs to:
- Standardize data usage.
- Enhance data quality.
- Enforce security measures.
- Comply with industry regulations.
The ultimate goal of this type of committee is to establish clear data ownership, improve data reliability, ensure regulatory adherence, and enable data-driven decision-making that fosters sustainable growth. This structure also provides a sounding board for all data and technology-related efforts that the company will implement in the future.
Achieve Strategic Alignment
Governance and steering committees are vital components of effective project and organizational management. By working together, these two elements create a robust system that supports decision-making, strategic direction, and accountability.
Whether your effort is enterprise-wide or focused on a single function, understanding the roles and interplay of governance and steering committees can significantly enhance your approach in achieving organizational objectives.
Ready to more effectively navigate the complexities of today’s business environment? Reach out to our consulting experts today.
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