Governance Architecture

Governance in a company is a significant issue. The people who provide management usually do not have specialist knowledge about the work at the operational level. It is then essential to define broad frameworks for working in which irresponsible risks are excluded. This is easier said than done. What managers can do is rely on proven and reliable solutions such as standards, norms, guidelines, laws, and regulations.

The governance architecture of a company is helpful for the management and board of a company to provide insight into the overall quality of governance in light of the strategy of the company. The question of how well the architecture supports or enables the correct governance of the company can be answered with a transparent governance architecture.

Governance architecture provides insight and an overview of where suboptimal standards have been chosen or where harmonization and standardization can make governance much more efficient across the company.

[IMAGE] Dragon1 model - Governance Architecture - metamodel

The Governance Architecture Metamodel contains a generic governance architecture model. It illustrates the sub-areas that comprise the governance architecture for an enterprise, as well as the types of concepts, models, principles, and other elements that are recognized.

In this case, there are mainly certain types of management concepts and elements. These concepts and elements can be related to the strategic principles of the company and its chain architectures, where you want to have control, supervision, and planning. By doing this correctly, the management and board of the company can exert control in various areas.

Concepts in management mainly consist of principles, style elements, rules, and components. Architecture principles, design principles, reality principles, and concept principles are all part of architecture. This means that norms, standards, values, rules, laws, regulations, guidelines, strategic principles, and boundary conditions can be viewed as integral to the management architecture.

An example of a governance component is a published principles document that gives everyone in the company direction for solving complex issues.

An example of a generic main concept for governance is 'compliance'. This concept refers to the company's compliance with all applicable legislation and regulations, as well as its efforts to achieve this. In international companies, the question is, 'Which legislation do we have to comply with given the countries where our customers are located, the requirements that suppliers set, and the country where our head office is located'?

An example of a specific architecture principle for governance is 'openness creates understanding'. This principle means that in all entities of governance, wherever they are, being open to the outside world will lead to a greater understanding of the situations regarding the services and products supplied by the company.

An example of a specific management style element is ‘culture’. This means that all entities of the company strive to maintain a consistent culture, with the advantage that a shared culture unites people.

An example of a specific management rule is ‘we have no secrets’. This rule means that all entities in the company work as transparently as possible.

Principles, style elements, rules, and components are highly effective and very directive if they are established and confirmed in a management architecture model. The board and management, together with the architects, must identify at least ten concepts, ten style elements, ten architecture principles, and ten enterprise rules that align with the company's identity, culture, structure, philosophy, mission, vision, and strategy.