Governance for the Agile Organization

Introduction

This paper is the result of a number of workshops and discussions held by the governance stream of the Business Agility Think Tank community, and a collaborate effort by members of the BATT. The Governance Workstream are the lead authors of this White Paper and their details are below.

The paper confirms the cultural values that define Business Agility, provides a perspective of governance through time before summarising the problems that ‘traditional’ governance approaches face in a volatile and uncertain world. It goes on to propose 10 Principles of Agile Governance and finishes with examples of their application to business.

For the purpose of this paper, we will use a definition proposed by the Agile Business Consortium:

Governance in Agile and Adaptive Organizations is “the management and curation (minding, careful development) of the structures, values, processes and practices that are required to develop and sustain an Agile and Adaptive organization” so that it can thrive in a changing business environment.

Key Insights

• Only 3% of individuals adopt high levels of self-governing behaviour
• There are 10 Principles of Agile Governance, including Minimal Viable Governance and Enabling Over Controlling
• How you can apply the principles ‘across the board’ to seven critical business functions as summarised in a 3-pillar model