Tactical Project Governance Frameworks

Have you ever looked at a project that’s going completely off the rails and wondered: Who exactly is in charge around here? In well-organized teams, you’ll find that that’s one way of asking about project governance frameworks. While the term is thrown around liberally, at its core it simply refers to who is in charge of a given project and what systems are in place to help the project succeed.

As a concept, project governance is very close to project management, but tends to be more broad in its application, referring to final stakeholders over on the ground managers, as well as the systems used in addition to the people using them.

The problem is that project governance can be such a complicated idea that, when it’s implemented at all, it’s often implemented incorrectly or using a stock formula that isn’t helpful in a wide variety of situations.

At Visor, we have a team of project management experts who believe that project governance can be a powerful tool when used correctly and individually. Here’s how we make it work.

Visor is a modern project portfolio management solution that integrates with the tools your team already uses – like Asana, Jira, and Salesforce – to help you manage your projects and share them with stakeholders in ways that make sense. Try it for free and find out why it’s the smart PM’s secret weapon.

What’s the problem with one-size-fits-all project governance frameworks?

Frankly, one-size-fits-all rarely fits anyone, and when it does it’s usually not especially flexible or comfortable.

Selecting the right project governance framework is a bit of an art, but it’s one that you can master and, in doing so, can uplevel your projects.

You should never find yourself cutting off pieces of your projects to force them to fit into a standard framework. Instead, you should have a set of basic frameworks that can be utilized and adjusted for a variety of different project types and different outcome goals.

Approaching a DIY Project Governance Framework

In a moment, we’ll provide you with four basic project governance frameworks you may want to adapt to your workflows. But before we do, let’s talk about how you can customize these frameworks to work for you, instead of expecting a perfect fit right out of the metaphorical box.

1. Define the scope – What is the project itself and how much effort will it take?
2. Define the stakeholders – Who cares about this project, and how much input should you expect them to have?
3. Define the team – Who will be working on this, and what are their roles?
4. Define the goals – Split this goal setting into feasibility estimates
   1. What’s the big goal?
   2. But what’s reasonable?
   3. Where do those two things misalign?
5. Define the process – How are you going to chase those goals you’ve set?
6. Define the roadmap – What are the different stages you expect this project to follow?
7. Define the documentation – What news to be agreed upon and documented before you get started to keep everyone on the same page?

Think of each of these elements as one part of project governance, and swap them in and out of different frameworks like building blocks to create customized systems that actually work.

Four Actually Useful Project Governance Frameworks

1. Hierarchical Governance Framework

What is a hierarchical governance framework?

A hierarchical governance framework is a traditional style of project governance that prioritizes formal reporting, a very well-defined process, and a clear structure and ranking base for the team using it.

What’s special about it:

• Suitable for traditional, large-scale organizations
• Clear chain of command and well-defined roles
• Emphasis on control and formal reporting

Who it involves:

• Executive Steering Committee: Senior executives who provide strategic direction and make key decisions
• Project Sponsor: An executive responsible for championing the project, securing funding, and ensuring alignment with business goals
• Project Management Office (PMO): A centralized body that sets standards, provides oversight, and ensures consistency in project management practices
• Project Manager: Responsible for day-to-day management and delivery of the project, reporting to the PMO
• Functional Managers: Oversee specific departments involved in the project, ensuring resources are available and departmental objectives are met
• Project Team: Executes project tasks, reporting to the Project Manager

Keystone Processes:

• Stage Gate Reviews: Formal checkpoints at key stages of the project lifecycle to assess progress and approve continuation
• Regular Status Reporting: Detailed reports provided to the PMO and Executive Steering Committee
• Change Control Board: Evaluates and approves any significant changes to the project scope, budget, or timeline

Tools for the job

For such a formalized process, you’re probably going to want something concrete and obvious to use. Consider managing work primarily in a kanban board featuring swimlanes. This type of chart will help you see exactly who is doing what tasks, which additionally helps with capacity management. You’ll want to make sure you have a structured, orderly set of stages of all project elements in order to get the most out of kanban.

Visor Kanban View

2. Agile Governance Framework

What is agile governance framework?

An agile governance framework is one that prioritizes agile principles, such as sprint structures and scrum methodologies.

What’s special about it:

• Best for dynamic environments, such as software development or startups.
• Emphasizes flexibility, collaboration, and rapid iteration.
• Less hierarchical, with empowered teams.

Who it involves:

• Product Owner: Represents the stakeholders and defines the project vision and priorities
• Scrum Master: Facilitates the Agile process, removes impediments, and ensures the team adheres to Agile principles
• Agile Team: Cross-functional team members responsible for delivering increments of the project
• Agile Steering Committee: Provides high-level guidance and support, helping resolve escalated issues

Keystone Processes:

• Sprint Planning and Reviews: Regularly scheduled iterations where work is planned, executed, and reviewed
• Daily Stand-Ups: Short, daily meetings to synchronize activities and address any immediate challenges
• Retrospectives: Meetings held at the end of each sprint to reflect on the process and implement improvements

Tools for the job

Agile means flexibility, iteration, and adjustments on the fly. That’s a good reason to use a Gantt chart, which combines the best of several world. Gantt gives you the flexibility of a kanban, where you can move tasks around and adjust the view to show things like impact and swimlanes, along with the structure of a timeline, where you’re easily able to see when milestones are approaching.

Visor Gantt View

3. Hybrid Governance Framework

What is a hybrid governance framework?

A hybrid governance framework is one that works to take elements of traditional governance frameworks and agile governance frameworks and mix them, selecting the parts that work best for a given organization.

What’s special about it:

• Combines elements of traditional and Agile governance
• Suitable for organizations transitioning to Agile or those with mixed project types
• Balances flexibility with control (it’s a Visor favorite for that reason!)

Who it involves:

• Project Sponsor: Provides strategic oversight and ensures project alignment with business objectives
• Project Manager/Scrum Master: Manages project planning and execution, adapting to the needs of the team and project
• PMO/Agile Office: Supports both traditional and Agile projects, offering guidance and ensuring standards are met
• Project Team: Comprises members with both Agile and traditional roles, capable of adapting to different methodologies
• Steering Committee: Monitors project progress, providing oversight and resolving issues

Keystone Processes:

• Integrated Planning & Mixed Reporting: Combines detailed upfront planning with iterative cycles for parts of the project, along with combining traditional status reports with Agile progress updates like burndown charts
• Flexible Stage Gates: Adapts stage gate reviews to suit the project’s methodology, allowing for Agile sprints within traditional phases
• Change Management: Uses both formal change control processes and Agile change adaptation techniques

Tools for the job

One of the best parts about a hybrid project governance framework is that it can flex to fit whatever your team needs. One of the best parts about using a powerful but flexible project management tool like Visor is that you don’t have to settle on one type of chart or view. You can share the same data, seamlessly, across multiple different charts.

If you want to use more than one tool (or if you’re managing people spread out across multiple teams) you’ll really love Visor’s two-way integrations, which port data seamlessly back and forth between Visor and the apps you’re already using, like Jira or Salesforce.

Two-way Sync in Visor

4. Lean Governance Framework

What is a lean governance framework?

A lean governance framework is one where the focus is on keeping processes and frameworks as lightweight as possible – sticking strictly to just the basics or what’s necessary.

What’s special about it:

• Ideal for organizations focused on efficiency and waste reduction
• Emphasizes value delivery and continuous improvement
• Minimal hierarchical structure, fostering empowerment

Who it involves:

• Value Stream Manager: Ensures that the project delivers maximum value with minimal waste
• Lean Team: Multidisciplinary team members dedicated to identifying and eliminating waste
• Lean Coach: Facilitates lean practices, mentors team members, and ensures continuous improvement
• Stakeholder Group: Engages with stakeholders regularly to ensure alignment and gather feedback

Keystone Processes:

• Value Stream Mapping: Analyzes the flow of materials and information to identify bottlenecks and waste
• Kaizen Events: Focused improvement sessions where teams address specific challenges
• Continuous Feedback: Regularly solicits feedback from stakeholders and team members to ensure ongoing alignment and improvement

Tools for the job

If you’re planning on using a lean governance framework, you’ll want lightweight tools to match. Consider planning your work using timelines, which use clear milestones and obvious hand off points, to reduce any serious finagling you might need to do to make everything fit together, and show exactly what your team needs to be working on and when.

Visor Timeline View

Each of these frameworks offers a different approach to project governance, allowing organizations to choose or tailor a framework that best fits their project environment, culture, and objectives. Add in the customization prompts above, and you have a nuanced, detailed system just for your needs.

How will your project governance frameworks work?

Project governance doesn’t have to be complicated, and it doesn’t have to be inaccessible. These basic systems can serve in a variety of ways to make your project management and planning more effective (and in better compliance) than ever before.

Looking for a tool to make this data come to life? Visor is the tool to combine data from all of your teams, no matter what apps they’re using, to bring it all in one place and create stunning reports that wow every stakeholder, every time. By the way, you can get started for free.

If you plan on using these tips, there’s a lot more where they came from. Read on:

1. Agile Estimation Techniques: How To Pick The Right Method For The Job
2. Building A Better Agile Standup Meeting Agenda
3. Your Complete Guide to Gantt Chart Milestones

Halden Pfearsen

Halden Pfearsen

Senior Writer

Halden Pfearsen is the head writer at Visor, bringing you the best of the best in PM strategy, news, and tools. She's been in the SaaS startup space since 2016, and has loved every second. Other things she loves include guitar, camping, and tabletop games.

Find more of Halden's published work, presentations, and awards right here.

Washington DC