Agility With Good Governance

Is it One or the Other?

There are few people who would argue that agility isn’t a good thing for their business. Equally there are few people who would argue that good governance isn’t a good thing for their business. So why do so many people think that governance and agility are opposing forces?

At Fifth Step we believe that the challenge governance verses agility is more about how the governance process is implemented and monitored rather than the inability of the two to exist in alignment. If the process is seen to be complex, or full of red tape that people don’t understand what they have to do to comply then this most definitely a way to stifle agility.

Having your Cake and Eating it

So what do you have to do to ensure you can maintain good governance and maintain your current levels of agility?

These are some of the generic things that we recommend that your governance and agility programmes include:

Representation from relevant parts of the business to ensure ground up buy-in for change
Comprehensive communications plan
Documentation detailing the processes
Velocity monitoring to understand the level of change and agility before and after change
Feedback opportunities for all to comment on the impact of changes
Regular continual service improvement (CSI) review incorporating feedback
Flexibility in processes allowing them to adapt from the CSI review

Your Next Steps

If you want to start improving your company without impacting its agility, then please feel free to ask a question of Fifth Step’s Governance Team who will help ensure that your business can achieve its full potential. Alternatively visit www.fifthstep.com to learn more about how we can work together.