Delivery Governance for Enterprise Teams

What Governance Actually Means

Governance is not bureaucracy. It's the operating system that helps large delivery organisations make decisions, manage risk, and maintain alignment without slowing down.

Good governance is invisible when things are going well and invaluable when things go wrong.

The Governance Cadence

Daily — Team Level

• Daily standup (15 min): What did I do? What will I do? What's blocking me?
• Owner: Scrum Master
• Escalation path: Blockers unresolved after 24 hours → Programme level

Weekly — Programme Level

• Programme sync (30 min): Cross-team dependencies, risks, decisions needed
• Owner: Program Manager
• Attendees: Scrum Masters, Tech Leads, Product Owners
• Outputs: Updated RAID log, dependency status, escalation list

Fortnightly — Delivery Leadership

• Delivery review (45 min): Programme health, milestone tracking, resource issues
• Owner: Delivery Lead / Head of Delivery
• Attendees: Program Managers, Product Directors, Architecture
• Outputs: Decisions made, resources allocated, risks accepted or mitigated

Monthly — Executive / Portfolio

• Portfolio review (60 min): Strategic alignment, investment decisions, benefits tracking
• Owner: Head of Portfolio / CTO
• Attendees: Executive team, Portfolio leads
• Outputs: Investment decisions, priority changes, strategic direction

The Delivery Dashboard

Every governance cadence needs a dashboard. Here's what to show at each level:

Team Dashboard

• Sprint burndown / burnup
• Velocity trend (last 6 sprints)
• Blockers count and age
• Definition of Done compliance

Programme Dashboard

• Milestone RAG status (all projects)
• Cross-team dependency health
• Top 5 risks by score
• Decisions pending (with age)
• Resource utilisation

Portfolio Dashboard

• Programme RAG overview
• Budget vs actuals
• Benefits realisation progress
• Strategic alignment score
• Capacity vs demand

Decision Forums

What makes a good decision forum:

1. Clear decision rights — who decides, who advises, who is informed 2. Pre-read materials — decisions should never be a surprise 3. Time-boxed — 5 minutes per decision maximum 4. Documented — decision, rationale, date, owner, review date 5. Communicated — decisions are shared within 24 hours

The RACI for Decisions

| Decision Type | Responsible | Accountable | Consulted | Informed | |---------------|-------------|-------------|-----------|----------| | Sprint scope change | Scrum Master | Product Owner | Team | Stakeholders | | Cross-team dependency | Program Manager | Delivery Lead | Both teams | Portfolio | | Budget reallocation | Program Manager | Executive Sponsor | Finance | All PMs | | Architecture change | Tech Lead | CTO | Architects | All teams | | Release date change | Program Manager | Executive Sponsor | All teams | Customers |

Escalation Framework

When to escalate:

• Blocker unresolved for 48+ hours
• Dependency at risk with no mitigation
• Budget variance >10%
• Milestone at risk of slipping >1 week
• Team conflict unresolved after 1 attempt

How to escalate:

• State the problem — one sentence
• State the impact — what happens if we don't resolve this
• State what's been tried — so the escalation point doesn't repeat failed approaches
• State what you need — a decision, a resource, an intervention

Escalation path:

Team → Scrum Master → Program Manager → Delivery Lead → Executive Sponsor

Each level has 48 hours to resolve before it escalates further.

Reporting Without Theatre

The 3-line status update:

1. Progress: What was delivered this period 2. Risk: What could go wrong and what we're doing about it 3. Ask: What decision or support is needed

That's it. If your status report is longer than one page, it's not a status report — it's a novel.

RAG Status Rules

Don't let RAG become meaningless. Define it clearly:

• Green: On track. No action needed. Confidence >80%.
• Amber: At risk. Action plan in place. Confidence 50-80%.
• Red: Off track. Escalation required. Confidence <50%.

Rule: You cannot move from Red to Green in one week. It must pass through Amber first. This prevents "watermelon reporting" (green on the outside, red on the inside).

Anti-Patterns

1. Governance without decisions — meetings that discuss but never decide 2. Too many forums — if you have 5 meetings that could be 2, consolidate 3. Reporting up but not acting down — dashboards that inform executives but don't drive team action 4. Governance as control — governance should enable, not restrict 5. One-size-fits-all — a 3-person team doesn't need the same governance as a 50-person programme

---

Download the [Programme RAID Register](/templates) and [Portfolio Dashboard](/templates) templates to implement this governance framework.