We offer a unique, modern, comprehensive approach to understanding, designing and improving Governance in organizations. Our methodology recognizes that Governance is always part of any service organization.
In other words, it is impossible to provide services without doing some form of Governance. Every aspect of governance we will talk about in a moment is always done somehow in an SO.
The question is not if governance management is there. The question is: how well it is actually done – and more importantly – where you want to improve it.
Governance can be understood as a framework of four major aspects of management, or Governance Aspects:
Each such aspect contains several Governance Controls, or mechanisms for managing critical parts of the SO.
Value Creation System aspect determines what the SO is aiming to achieve, under which rules, and how precisely its services are to be delivered & managed to achieve this aim. It is the foundational component of Governance and is central to all other controls of the entire SO. How well this aspect is established and controlled largely determines how effectively all other management functions control the entire SO. (The more precisely you know what you are managing the easier it is to manage it well.)
It contains the following Governance Controls:
A concrete definition of what realistic role / function / impact the organization means to have on its environment and itself. This control determines how well whole organization (management & staff) knows what it wants to achieve and how well it can focus its efforts in doing so.
A detailed map & design of how SO’s processes create, sell & deliver services & products to realize its purpose. It defines & controls in detail how precisely the SO’s services are being produced, supported & managed in every stage of their life cycle end-to-end (from enabler services to service recipients).It also maps & controls what platforms & assets are used to produce each life cycle stage, as well as which regulations, standards & agreements are guiding service operations. This control also defines the framework for operational risk management, from monitoring & prevention to impact reduction & corrective processes design.
A concrete definition of realistic rules on what the organization is / is not willing to do in order to realize its purpose. These rules define how the SO is engaged in realizing its Secondary Initiatives, both externally imposed (e.g. tax, legal, etc.) as well as self-chosen (e.g. HR, infosec, safety, environment protection, etc.). The better this control is established the more these rules translate into actionable constraints on service operations & management processes.
aspect determines how the SO accumulates, develops and controls the core expertise required to deliver & manage its services.
The better this aspect operates
Organizations with this aspect well established have generally much less challenges with survival and much more independent decision on their own direction.All Governance Controls in this aspect define their relevant primary quality criteria (required for fulfilling their purpose) as well as their relevant regulatory constraints. This aspect contains the following Governance Controls:
Control over end-state and composition of delivered service outcomes, e.g. what exactly should be delivered by each service.
Control over the procedure and sequence of relevant service operations tasks, e.g. how precisely should delivery be executed.
Design of asset configurations used in service operations, e.g. how assets should be set up & engaged in different service scenarios.
Pragmatic grouping of functions / capabilities used most frequently in the running scenarios of SO’s service operations.
Detailed framework design of processes to oversee, control and manage all SO’s service operations end-to-end (e.g. a customized ITIL implementation.
This aspect determines the SO’s ability to monitor & learn from its past performance, and through that to better control, correct and improve its present service operations. It also implements SO’s operational risk management capability, based on the framework from Value Creation Design.
The better this aspect operates:
This aspect contains the following Governance Controls:
inventory of all service assets (e.g. products, performers, enablers, consumables) and process instances (e.g. orders, operations, incidents, changes, controls) This control forms the foundation for all other controls in this aspect, allowing to identify & track assets and processes within all service operations (e.g. CMDB, ticketing system, etc.).
ability to track & review past status & actions to detect behavior patterns as well as exceptions, to learn & improve on them.
This control supports SO’s retro-active management, providing an information landscape of its past performance history as input for strategy decision.
ability to track, monitor & oversee the present status & actions to achieve better control over them
This control supports SO’s operational management of current activity, providing an information landscape of its present performance as input for current operational decision.
ability to monitor & reduce likelihood of negative risks in service operations, as well as detect exceptions (negative risk effects) and respond to them.
This control determines the level of management by exception approach within the SO. The better it functions, the less management effort it costs to manage operational risks & exception.
aspect determines: the SO’s ability to organize its future work, predict its possible results and with that knowledge choose a most successful course of action.
It implements SO’s forward risk management capability, forecasting future risks in SO’s strategy plans to analyze their likelihood & impact and find the best mitigation and impact reduction scenarios. SOs with this aspect well developed:
The quality of all controls in this aspect is dictated by both level of detail covered as well as the amount of effort to run it and the frequency of their use. There is a very different value of planning ahead, forecasting & adjusting tactics once every half a year with a heavy process, compared to doing it once a week with a lightweight process. This aspect contains the following Governance Controls:
ability to forecast & simulate possible scenarios of SO’s future performance / results / risks based on known past behavior, present situation and set goals. This control provides insight on how probable each future scenario is and what its results depend on, as an essential inputs into both operational and strategic planning.
Ability to plan future work, assessing its possible results / schedule / resources / risks prior to committing to its realization. This control is supported by Forward Visibility and is SO’s backbone for managing demand, capacity per capability, implementation throughput, commitments & priorities.
Ability to adjust SO’s plans, resources and commitments based on new information and changing present situation. This control is supported by both forecasts and plans; it determines how agile the SO’s operations are – the more frequently it runs the more effective it become.
