Business: Digital Governance

This is a sample chapter from Lisa Welchman’s new book Managing Chaos. 2015 Rosenfeld Media.

Chapter 7: Getting It Done

The governance framework design effort is a good opportunity for your organization’s digital stakeholders to learn how to work and collaborate better. So, even if you already have a sense of who on your digital team ought to have the authority to make decisions related to digital strategy, policy, and standards, it’s still important to go through the design effort with a larger team. Because it’s not just the end state that is important, but rather the interim conversation, collaboration, and compromise required to build your framework. Those activities will bring your team into better communication, better community, and better alignment. Read More

All companies, regardless of their industry or size, must operate in compliance with specific government rules and regulations. In fact, regulatory compliance refers to a set of rules that businesses must abide by under the law. For instance, it could entail following the guidelines the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has established to provide a secure working environment for your staff members. Or it could require adhering to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) regulations that guarantee impartial hiring procedures.

Some regulations are specific to certain industries—for instance, food-industry regulations that cover the entire supply chain—and ensure the safety of specific types of products. Of course, food-industry standards are very different from those for the financial-services sector—some of which concentrate on cybersecurity and the secure handling of sensitive data. Read More

Often, when I attend conferences, I like to purchase a new book. This is how I discovered Lisa Welchman’s book, Managing Chaos: Digital Governance by Design, to which I was immediately drawn.

Digital projects are often challenging, creative, and fun. There may be a fair amount of healthy—and, sometimes, unhealthy—debate, but that’s generally a positive thing. Inevitably, if you are working on an initiative of any great size, someone will mention governance.

If there’s a faster way to remove oxygen from a room, I’ve yet to find it. Perhaps part of people’s aversion to governance is its reputation for bureaucracy, overhead, and generally slowing things down. There may be a sense of dissonance between those who exercise governance and those who feel encumbered by it. Read More