Tools – ‘Discipline and Transparency’

In this final section, the third in the trilogy of effective sourcing governance elements, I present the Tools. So far, we have some people standing around and some processes they must own and some process they might own. How they fit together is further prescribed in this section. The theme for the sourcing governance tools is discipline and transparency. This is where the rubber meets the road. This is the factor which truly operationalises sourcing governance.

The first Tools formula is that for governance meetings. Every governance meeting should be expressed in terms of;

Governance Meeting formula:

F_mtg = (F,T,D)

The above formula states that all meetings have only three attributes, vis;

−     Frequency (F)

−     Type (T)

−     Duration (D)

Each attribute has a certain range. In the case of Frequency, the range or options are:

• F = Daily, Weekly, Fortnightly, Monthly, Bi-monthly, Quarterly, Half-yearly, Annual
• The Type of meeting is binary;  T = Face-to-face or Teleconference
• And the Duration is expressed in hours.

Examples:

1.      An Account Review Meeting which is held monthly and has a duration of 1 hour is expressed as ARM(MF1).

2.      An Executive Performance Assessment Meeting which is held every six months (half-yearly) and has a duration of 2 hours is expressed as EPA(HF2).

Why is this important? This formula allows for ready communication of the characteristics of the governance meeting structure.  You can see from a meeting schedule and chart what meetings occur, with what frequency and their duration. I have provided an example below based upon a simple sourcing relationship.

Governance Meeting Structure:

Week in Month	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri
1
2		SMM (FF1)
3
4		SMM (FT1)		ARM (MF1)
5				EPA (HF2)

The above schedule clearly shows that there are three governance meetings in this relationship. A Service Management Meeting (SMM), held fortnightly for one hour face-to-face on the second Tuesday of the month. The second SMM in the month is a conference call (T) on every forth Tuesday for one hour. An Account Review Meting (ARM) is held on the fourth Thursday of every month for one hour. And finally, there is an Executive Performance Assessment meeting (EPA) held every half-year on the last Thursday of the six-month. The executives meet in person for two hours. One other important characteristic shown within the schedule above is the timing of the meetings. As shown above, the SMM must occur prior to the ARM as they are inputs into this meeting. Moreover, in the month the EPA occurs it is a week after that months ARM. This permits the ARM participants to prepare for the EPA and mitigates against any surprises.

How many meetings should there be? There must be at least one and ideally a minimum of three. Why three? There should be a specific Service Review covering the theme of performance (SLAs). There must be an Account Review focusing on Finance (Invoice), Performance, Issues, Contract, Demand Management (if applicable) and Customer Satisfaction. Finally, there should be an executive forum to ensure minimal entropy from what was thought to what was bought.

Number of governance meetings:

N_{govmtg  >= 1}

In addition to the three meetings stated above, further meetings are dependent upon the deal type and characteristics of the deal. One caveat, you cannot have hundreds of meetings. If you adhere to the tools and advice listed here, you will not have too many meetings.

Range for governance meetings:

1 =< N_govmtg <=30

Once the schedule is completed, the next Tool value-add is to structure the meetings to ensure internal consistency.  The internal consistency is driven by which meeting’s outputs form inputs into other meetings. The most straight-forward method of achieving this is by a meeting chart. (This tool is not needed for simple governance frameworks.) I have provided an example of a larger governance meeting structure in the figure below.

Governance Meeting Chart:

Every governance meeting has only five attributes.

Governance Attribute Formula:

Gov_mtg = Purpose + Participants + Inputs + Outputs + Scheduling

The Purpose for the meeting (Gov_mtg) dictates the other four attributes.  For example, if the purpose of the meeting is to review the monthly invoice, then the participants must be those persons who are accountable or own Invoice Management, typically the Finance Manager.  The inputs are the invoice and the contracted pricing model and performance reports (e.g., SLA report). The output is an agreed invoice. An invoice meeting must be scheduled to align with the timing of the invoice, typically monthly.

The key to effective sourcing governance is to ensure that all your governance processes have been assigned to a governance forum.  I have provided below an example for the governance meeting chart used previously. I have only included the five plus one minimum best practice governance processes.

As a general rule, the terms of reference for a meeting must include at least one of the 25 governance processes. This is the ‘what’ for the meeting.

Governance Process Formula:

Gov_mtg => nGov_process , where n = 1 to 25

Governance Processes assigned to Governance Meetings:

Governance Meeting	Governance Process
EPA	Not applicable
ARM	Contract Management Issues Management
PRM	Project Management (if there is demand)
SRM	Service Level Management Invoice Management Service Request Management
ITSM	Not applicable – but uses relevant ITSM process
CAB	Not applicable – but uses ITSM Change Mgmt

You need a minutes template to capture the minutes from these meetings. A standard template is recommended for all the governance meetings to ensure consistency. The last thing you want is to have your Operational Meeting minutes in bullet points in an e-mail, your Account Review Meeting minutes in a word document and your Project Review Meeting minutes in a spreadsheet. If you allow this you should also allow your executives to record their minutes on a napkin!

Governance Meeting Template:

Invest in one, they are free (download one from the net)

Tip: maintain a discipline with your meeting minutes to only record action items, decisions and reports tabled. Ensure that each action has one and only one owner and is dated the date of the meeting. I use the reverse of the extended date standard; YYYYMMDD. For example, 20110610-01 means that this is the first action item from a meeting held on 10 June 2011.  This permits you to readily see the age of the action item.

Governance Meeting Documentation:

Store your meeting minutes in the cloud. Get over the confidentiality and security concern. This way you and your provider have access to all the minutes.

Tip: establish a generic governance meeting mailbox. This way you can ensure that meeting acceptances, input documentation, etc is accessible by more than one individual.  Moreover, this future-proofs your Sourcing Account Management (SAM) from staff turnover.

Good Governance

The goal of good sourcing governance is simple. It is to make explicit the ‘rules of the game’ between the customer and the provider. In other words, good governance makes explicit, ‘who talks with whom, about what and when’. What does this mean? It means there is clarity on authority, accountability, and auditability (transparency). But good governance does not stop there. Good governance ensures that there are no gaps, no holes in the governance framework. Good governance protects against surprises. This is why the comprehensiveness of the governance process set is a critical success factor. Good governance also delivers the capacity to focus on the truly value-adding elements and not the transactional rear-view mirror investment seen today.

Good governance starts in the first week of the sourcing relationship. It must exist in Transition and it must continue throughout the life of the relationship, changing as both the customer and provider needs change.

All three elements of people, processes, and tools have to be right for efficacious sourcing governance. What does this mean?

I have clearly shown you who talks with whom (People), about what (Processes) and when (meeting schedule).

The final revelation is that all the resources must own at least one governance process and the governance processes must in turn be assigned to a governance meeting. This ensures that all the stakeholders actively participate in the governance for the sourcing relationship.

It is this final crucial step that most relationships miss. They leave this to chance, either knowingly or unconsciously, more likely the latter, and as a result the relationship drifts to an unpleasant place. The sourcing business model is a fragile one. As a result it’s most likely outcome is dissatisfaction and failure. Good sourcing governance is the key instrument to avoid this outcome.

What will this achieve? Efficacious sourcing governance will enable a revolution; a revolution which shifts sourcing governance from being a transactional retrospective IT agenda, to a proactive business value enhancing agenda. It will liberate its participants to focus on tomorrow-land. The things needed to insulate and ensure strategic alignment and success of the business.

For more information contact Ernie Zibert at ernie.zibert@gmail.com

Thanks goes to Mohandass Ayyappath for his insightful comments and editing.