For the rebelion!

What does it mean to have good governance within an organisation?

I was told today that I am just creating chaos and should stop this madness of bringing in new ideas and technologies to the organisation … I seem to recall that innovation and making things better were the main points in the speech from the recently appointed CIO person, but never mind that. This is about people who think they are the guardians of the republic … I mean corporate order and status quo. Referring to the slogan from the top of the image – this is about my rebellion built on the hope that deep inside the architecture and governance teams actually do care about the success of the company we all work for. They just need help to find a path away from the dark side 🙂

I can see the point of view of people trying to set standards and approved ways of working but I cannot agree with the way they cling to them. I simply cannot accept that we have arrived at the optimum and should forever on keep repeating the same task. In Toyota Kata book there are countless examples where they state how their process have changed and how organisations have failed by simply trying to copy the Toyota manufacturing processes as-is without the culture of continuous improvement. I also cannot accept how a single solution, product or technology solves all the problems within a given field on IT.

What do you do when you face the empire like this? You keep fighting! Never give up … for the rebellion! … A friend of mine recently pointed out to me that in Rouge 1 they have killed all the good guys, but then I realised that they have not killed ALL the good guys, the rebellion lived on. The actions of these few brave individuals enabled others and in the end, the Rebellion won … well, kind of, we are still to find out from episode 8 and 9 🙂

So how do you fight, you might ask? Here are my ideas:

• Have a good idea what you are fighting for – make sure it is not a personal goal or a whim you are following, validate your idea with the team
• Build a story how your application/problem is different from the current standard and how following your choices creates a better solution
• Create a vision of how your initial implementation can extend the standards, make them better in the future and promote re-use of your products

If that is not good enough … find a Luke person, get the plans to their Death Star and blow them up 🙂 But if there is hope (or you blew everything up) and we can go back to the question from the top, this is how I’d like governance and strategy to work:

• It helps when you are lost
• It shows the long-term goals clearly but leaves it to the teams to map out the journey
• It gives you ideas rather than boundaries
• It’s open to new initiatives and accepts that best practice changes
• It is owned and evolved by everyone, not the select few

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