Mob rules

Something that has been simmering in the background for Enable for a while has been the subject of governance and managing innovation. This is a main aspect of TOGAF and something that the Enable team wrote a number of internal documents about for the then Pro Vice Chancellor, in particular within the recommendations for setting up a Change Management (AKA Programme Management) office. Since these documents and the change in senior management things have become a little quiet, but recently the whole "Governance" thing has come back to the fore. This has been for a number of reasons.

• Two of the project team attended the JISC EAPG which had a day focused on Governance giving the project team a couple of thoughts to follow up including:
  
  • Although seen as Governance exists or doesn't there is a third state - exists but is worked around
  • How is it managed/ reviewed?
  • does governance ensure quality control/ stakeholder engagement?
    


• The project manager and director are writing a short survey based on internal interviews (that they hope the community will help participate in once complete - keep an eye on #jiscenable on Twitter) on perceptions of governance and finance models in Higher Education


• The project manager is writing a number of pages for the Design Circle with the help of the rest of the project team, and one of the subjects is Governance.

Obviously Governance is an important part of any institution but it has been noted that institutions have a number of issues with it. We are hoping over the next few months to unpick a number of the issues highlighted above, to try and understand what is happening, how it is happening and what we can do to change cultural behaviours & perceptions. This has only been seen as possible thanks to the re-engagement of senior management, and the fact that the messages we have been saying are starting to filter through and be repeated back to us. Without this change in behaviour and understanding I believe that attempting to address the above would be too difficult an issue for the Enable team.