Governance has a bad reputation in most organisations. It means slow decisions, bureaucratic overhead, and approval processes that add delay without adding value. I want to take this reputation seriously rather than dismiss it, because it is often deserved — and when it is, it is usually because the governance has been designed around the wrong purpose.
Governance forums in an architecture practice exist for one reason: to make planning decisions official. Not to make them. To make them official.
The actual decisions are made through D-E-A — through the informal conversations, iterative development, and bilateral alignment that happen before any governance meeting. By the time an artefact arrives at a governance forum for formal endorsement, everyone in the room should already know what it contains and broadly agree with it. If a governance forum meeting is producing significant new arguments or substantive revisions, the pre-meeting process failed. The fix is not a longer governance meeting. It is better preparation.
The four forums
Strategy Forum
Business-focused and strategic. Approves Business Factors and Business Visions. Chaired by the CIO, attended by senior business executives and enterprise architects. Meets quarterly. This is where the organisation’s strategic IT direction is formally ratified.
Technology Forum
IT-focused and strategic. Approves IT Standards and the strategic dimensions of IT Landscapes. Chaired by the Chief Architect or Architecture Manager, attended by Domain Architects and senior IT leaders. Meets monthly. This is the forum that defines the technical playing field.
Investment Forum
Business-focused and tactical. Approves Business Outlines — specifically Solution Overviews — and makes funding decisions. Chaired by the CIO, attended by business executives, architects, and a finance representative. Meets monthly. Nothing moves into implementation without passing through here.
Design Forum
IT-focused and tactical. Approves IT Designs. Chaired by the relevant Domain Architect or lead architect, attended by Solution Architects and technical specialists. Meets on a per-initiative basis. Implementation begins only after the Design has been reviewed for landscape fit and Standards compliance.
How forums scale with organisation size
- Small organisations: A single committee handles all four functions, inviting different participants for different agenda items.
- Medium organisations: Two committees — a Business Committee (Strategy + Investment) and an IT Committee (Technology + Design).
- Large organisations: Four separate forums. The governance function must be fulfilled regardless of how it is structured.
Two practical principles
- Pre-read discipline. Every artefact being reviewed must be distributed to forum members at least forty-eight hours before the meeting. A forum that reviews documents for the first time in the meeting is not governing; it is reacting. Reactions produce poor decisions.
- Decision logging. Every endorsement, rejection, exemption, and escalation must be formally recorded: the artefact version reviewed, the participants present, and any conditions or obligations attached. Decision logs are the institutional memory of an architecture practice and the audit trail for architecture debt. Without them, the commitments made in governance forums evaporate.
The most important thing governance forums do is not endorse good plans. It is create the shared, explicit, documented commitment that makes plans binding — the organisational authority that gives architects the standing to hold delivery teams accountable to architectural direction.