Governance That Sells

My last article, Continually Improving the Operation, was the second of four articles about the 4 Steps to Success After a Shared Service Start Up. In this article I will cover step three, Governance. Within Governance I will cover the Purpose, Approach and Structure. When I was first introduced to the concept of Governance, I immediately thought of a laborious bureaucratic activity that had no real positive results. However, after working with it for a while in some very good companies, I now have a much different opinion of Governance. To me, Governance is an excellent way of continually selling your service to your customers (internal and external) by getting structured and consistent feedback on your performance. When done correctly, Governance also gives you the ability to tap into your customers for innovative ideas on how to service them best. In turn, your customers have the opportunity to directly impact the service they receive, so when you and your customers embrace Governance everyone wins. Purpose Governance is the establishment a goal driven working system for the purpose of performance and compliance monitoring, decision-making, and goal setting. Approach Your Governance approach should contain 5 key components. These components are tightly woven into the entire Governance system. Performance Management – Performance reporting and management of the services delivered to include: · Service level reporting · Problem resolution · Idea generation · Needs assessment and adjustment · System/process changes · Project management · Planning Relationship Management – Active expectation management to include: · Customer management · Stakeholder management · Supplier management Financial Management – Managing the business portion of the services provided to include: · Budgeting · Profitability analysis · Business case analysis · Reviewing and approving invoices Contractual Administration – Monitoring and adjusting contractual obligations to include: · Monitor for compliance · Changes to contractual documents · Maintenance of exhibits · Assistance with interpretation Risk Management – Risk containment to include: · Risk Audits · Risk assessment · Mitigation action plans · Application of policies and procedures Structure The structure of Governance is to first form an Oversight Committee. Once in place, the committee will establish their meeting frequency and schedule and the meeting agenda. Since this is a goal driven Governance group they should also develop a formal Outcomes and Action Plan format. Oversight Committee – The oversight committee should primarily consisting of: · Customer Sponsor · Customer Project Manager · Service Provider Sponsor · Service Provider Project Manager · Other stakeholders may be added but the objective is to keep the committee small Committee Meetings – A monthly oversight committee meeting will be held: • Purpose Goal-setting Decision-making Compliance and performance reporting Corrective action initiation (as appropriate) • Agenda Each meeting will have a published agenda Minutes of each meeting will be taken and distributed by the Service Provider organization Agenda (Sample) 1) Introduction a. Call the meeting to order b. Record participants names c. Review any last meeting minute changes recommended by the meeting members 2) Issues a. Review open issues from last meeting b. Review old issue action/resolution plan progress c. Introduce and review new issues d. Develop an action/resolution plan for the new issues 3) Performance a. Review current performance compliance reports b. Develop corrective action plans for performance deficiencies 4) Change Management a. Review any undecided change requests where the analysis has been completed for the purpose of deciding the request b. Review any new change requests and assign responsibility for analysis 5) Review action assignments and due dates developed during the meeting 6) Adjourn the meeting 7) Clean up meeting notes and distribute Outcomes and Action Plan During each meeting the decisions made and action to be taken will be documented as a part of the meeting notes. However, each item requiring action should also contain the owner of the action, milestone and/or completion dates, resources required, and an expected outcome (a document, a number, research, etc.) In summary, a proper governance structure can do much more that just monitor and report. It can actively sell your services and enhance customer services by making your customers a part of the solution. So don’t shy away from Governance, embrace it. [inlinead]

Governance That Sells

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