How to Refine Governance Practices Across Your Organization

As your Agile journey continues, you will likely see the need for strategic rules around your business decision-making processes, especially as your organization grows and the Agile transformation takes on more levels of the organization.

These strategic rules are called governance, and Agile governance is a unique method of abiding by the rules in an Agile company. First, let’s discuss the basics of what Agile governance is, then how the governance practices can and should be refined across the entire organization.

What is Agile Governance?

Governance basically involves creating a formal process for determining what business decisions need to be made, how they are going to be made, and who is going to make them. The goal is to make this process repeatable and sustainable so decisions can be made quickly and efficiently without analysis paralysis.

The term Agile governance emphasizes the necessary speed of these decisions, and it’s based on lightweight artifacts developed with minimum effort. Agile Governance can be accomplished by defining and using a set of standardized elements, including Roles, Ceremonies, Metrics, and Governance Points at the different levels of an organization.

Refining Agile Governance Practices

Often organizations that are experiencing rapid growth, or who are changing methodologies, seek help with refining their governance practices.

As organizations grow, their need for governance grows as well. Small organizations usually only need informal governance, but they are unlikely to grow much larger without formalizing their governance over time. The best way to handle this challenge is by providing just enough of the right kind of governance to enable successful collaboration, while avoiding excessive governance, which slows things down.

Creating Your Own Governance

cPrime coaches and trainers often put Governance Recipes (cPrime’s proprietary RAGE formula ) into practice when working with clients transitioning to Agile methodologies or aligning hybrid projects.

Using RAGE principles to quickly and effectively refine your governance practices allows for faster decision making, faster communication of decisions across all levels of the organization, and faster implementation of any changes resulting from the refinements.

cPrime’s RAGE principles are easily adaptable and apply to all types of projects. They give executives guidance on how to develop their own recipes for governance in unique situations.

See how RAGE can help your organization refine Agile governance practices .