David from Industrial Research is presenting on governance and intranets.

About IRL
– A crown research institute, focused on applied science and engineering.
– 350 staff, 200+ PhDs
– Sites in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch
– 60% of funding comes from the government, and it’s contestable every year. Can be really hard, especially in years when there is a lot of high-risk research

Why Governance?
– “Politics will kill your intranet?”
– “We can’t get the buy in of the CEO and SMT”
– “We’re always fighting over control”
– “They don’t know what they’re doing”
– “We don’t have enough budget … “

Defining governance:
– control of the work
– co-ordination between different pieces of work
– measurement of outcome
– compliance with internal policy or regulation
– justification of spending
– accountability and transparency
– connecting with the needs of customers, the broader organization, and other stakeholders

Making it work:
– A steering committee … at IRL, the CEO (or delegate), 3 GMs (or delegate), business representatives, company secretary (also on the Board of Directors, which makes this really great), the CFO, the Information Manager and the IT Manager
– A terms of reference … what are you supposed to be doing? Key areas … Objectives (“What’s the business value?”), Structure (Who is represented?), Operation (How often will you meet?, Who calls and chairs the meeting?), and Voting (consensus if possible).
– The “boring stuff” … agenda, minutes and papers
– … the paperwork enables you to be in control. You have to do a whole lot of work beforehand, and do the spadework, but it pays off. “The harder you work, the luckier you get”, per Gary Player.
– … send out supporting documents in advance … shows that you have put in the hard work, puts you in control, allows people at the meeting to focus on decisions
– … write minutes to document the decisions
– … integrate the meeting with business processes … eg, anything that goes to the Capital Planning Committee also has to go through the Steering Committee first. Changes what the Capital Planning Committee does from “should we do this?” to “how do we fund this?”
– Working parties and interest groups, eg, the KAREN working party, the Records Management working party (about the Public Records Act in New Zealand), the public Web working party

Getting Governance Right
– Talk business with the business. Talk about priorities, talk about business problems to solve with the Intranet
– Tie governance into other business processes. Make it have business context beyond the meeting.
– Take the lead … and talk about what the business needs. We give them the options.
– IT chairs the meeting … provides a way of setting the direction, and making it work.
– In any meeting things will go wrong … eg, the CEO can only stay for 30 minutes of a scheduled 90 minute meeting … what are the things that are critical to move to the top?
– Take all of the information papers as read. David said, “We are lucky that the people at IRL actually read the papers.”
– Involve your team.

David didn’t mention it, but his approach reminds me of Death by Meeting … because he is creating a culture in IT that uses in-person meeting time for what it should be used.

Benefits
– Manage and mitigate risk.
– Get business buy-in.
– Leading the business and pushing the boundaries.
– Get funding for projects
– Showcase your team

Risks
– You lose control … so you need to take the lead, set the agenda, and chair the meeting.
– Terms of reference make it clear what you can do.
– Biggest risk … that the Steering Committee lowers its sights from Governance to Operations.